November Twenty-fifth
A skunk knows every woodchuck and rabbit burrow in his neighborhood. In the woods he will often visit hole after hole with great precision, but in the meadows he is more apt to follow the fences, frequently cutting across a corner in order to shorten the distance to a burrow. Probably experience has taught him that rabbits are often found in woodchuck holes and that meadow mice also take shelter in them during the winter.
November Twenty-sixth
The tallest and heaviest of all birds is the African ostrich, but the condor of South America has the widest expanse of wing. In the United States, the California vulture, once very rare, but now steadily increasing, is broadest across the wings. The whooping crane stands the highest, and the swans are the heaviest of our birds.
November Twenty-seventh
Do not kill the bats that you find passing the winter in your garret, or those that fly into your house in the summer. They destroy large numbers of gnats and mosquitoes, and do no harm. The belief that they get into one's hair is ridiculous, and it is seldom that they are infested with vermin. A South American species has been known to suck the blood of horses and cattle.