246 MAMMALIA. 



once commences to establish a home. The diversity of taste 

 exercised in this selection is hardly outdone by our own idio- 

 syncrasies in the same field. 



Some evince a love for home and take up their abodes in the 

 very cloor-yards of their parents ; while others, impelled by a desire 

 to see more of the world, wander far and wide before settling down 

 to the sober task of excavating their holes. Some, indeed, never 

 give themselves this trouble, but merely take possession of the de- 

 serted burrows of their ancestors, where a small amount of labor 

 is all that is necessary to render the easily acquired, though some- 

 what musty apartments habitable. Woodchucks' holes are not all 

 alike. There are two principal types : the first slopes at a mod- 

 erate anofle from the surface and has a mound of dirt near its 



o 



entrance ; * the other is more or less vertical for several feet 

 (often a metre or more) immediately below the surface, and no 

 loose "earth can be found in its neighborhood. The latter are usu- 

 ally smaller than the others and several are often clustered about 

 one of the large family burrows, though they are occasionally 

 isolated. If the surface opening is in a meadow, the hole through 

 the sod is apt to be sharp cut and more or less circular in outline. 

 Intermediate forms are sometimes met with, and many of these 

 are in time converted into primary burrows. 



The galleries do not conform to any definite or uniform pattern, 

 but vary in length, depth, and direction, and in the number of 

 branches, nests, and surface openings, according to the location, 

 character of soil, number of inhabitants, and individual idiosyncrasy. 

 However, they resemble one another sufficiently in some respects 

 to admit of general description. As a rule they slant abruptly 

 downward from the entrance to a depth of from three to four feet 

 (.914 to 1.219 metres), whence, inclining slightly upward and 

 usually curving to one side, they extend horizontally for a varying 



* The mounds in front of the large holes frequently, if not generally, contain accumulations of 

 the animal's excrement, and in one case I removed fully half a bushel from a single mound. 



