“Yes, he has a little tail, a little stub of a tail, but it is so small that to look at him you would think he hadn't any,” replied Old Mother Nature. “He is found out in the same mountains of the Far West where Whistler and Little Chief live, but instead of living way up high among the rocks he is at home down in the valleys where the ground is soft and the trees grow thickly. Stubtail has no use for rocks. He wants soft, wet ground where he can tunnel and tunnel to his heart's content. In one thing Stubtail is very like Yap Yap the Prairie Dog.”
“What is that?” asked Johnny Chuck quickly, for, you know, Yap Yap is Johnny's cousin.
“In his social habits,” replied Old Mother Nature. “Stubtail isn't fond of living alone. He wants company of his own kind. So wherever you find Stubtail you are likely to find many of his family. They like to go visiting back and forth. They make little paths between their homes and all about through the thick ferns, and they keep these little paths free and clear, so that they may run along them easily. Some of these little paths lead into long tunnels. These are made for safety. Usually the ground is so wet that there will be water running in the bottoms of these little tunnels.”
“What kind of a house does Stubtail have?” inquired Johnny Chuck interestedly.
“A hole in the ground, of course,” replied Old Mother Nature. “It is dug where the ground is drier than where the runways are made. Mrs. Stubtail makes a nest of dried ferns and close by they build two or three storehouses, for Stubtail and Mrs. Stubtail are thrifty people.”
“I suppose he fills them with hay, for you said he is a haymaker,” remarked Happy Jack Squirrel, who is always interested in storehouses.
“Yes,” replied Old Mother Nature, “he puts hay in them. He cuts grasses, ferns, pea-vines and other green plants and carries them in little bundles to the entrance to his tunnel. There he piles them on sticks so as to keep them off he damp ground and so that the air can help dry them out. When they are dry, he takes them inside and stores them away. He also stores other things. He likes the roots of ferns. He cuts tender, young twigs from bushes and stores away some of these. He is fond of bark. In winter he is quite as active as in summer and tunnels about under the snow. Then he sometimes has Peter Rabbit's bad habit of killing trees by gnawing bark all around as high up as he can reach.”
“Can he climb trees?” asked Chatterer the Red Squirrel.
“Just about as much as Johnny Chuck can,” replied Old Mother Nature. “Sometimes he climbs up in low bushes or in small, low-branching trees to cut off tender shoots, but he doesn't do much of this sort of thing. His home is the ground. He is most active at night, but where undisturbed, is out more or less during the day. When he wants to cut off a twig he sits up like a Squirrel and holds the twig in his hands while he bites it off with his sharp teeth.”
“You didn't tell us what color his coat is,” said Peter Rabbit.