PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN WINTER. 505 



trees fgr an indefinite period ; a tragic feature to tlie scenery of 

 the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's 

 description of the sea floor/' 



A few of the fishes, as the mnd minnow and smaller catfishes, 

 together with most frogs, turtles, and salamanders, on the ap- 

 proach of winter, burrow into the mud at the bottom of the 

 streams and ponds, or beneath logs near their margins. There 

 they live without moving about and with all the vital processes 

 in a partially dormant condition, thus needing little if any food. 



The box tortoise or " dry-land terrapin," the common toad, and 

 some salamanders burrow into the dry earth, usually going deep 

 enough to escape the frost, while snakes seek some crevice in the 

 rocks or hole in the ground where they coil themselves together, 

 oftentimes in vast numbers, and prepare for their winter's sleep. 

 If the winter be an " open " one this hibernation is sometimes in- 

 terrupted, and the animal issues forth from its retreat on a warm, 

 sunny day, thinking, no doubt, that spring has come again. 



Thus the writer has, on one occasion, seen a soft-shelled turtle 

 moving gracefully over the bottom of a stream on a day in late 

 December, and has in mid-January captured snakes and sala- 

 manders from beneath a pile of driftwood where they had taken 

 temporary refuge. 



With frogs especially this hibernation is not a perfect one, 

 and there is a doubt if in a mild winter some species hibernate at 

 all. For example, the little cricket frog or " peeper " has been 

 seen many times in midwinter alongside the banks of flowing 

 streams, and during the open winter of 1888-'89 numerous speci- 

 mens of leopard and green frogs were seen on different occasions 

 in December and January, while on February 18th they, together 

 with the peepers, were in full chorus. 



Of our mammals, a few of the rodents or gnawers, as the 

 ground-hogs, gophers, and chipmunks, hibernate in burrows deep 

 enough to escape the cold, and either feed on a stored supply of 

 food, or, like the snakes and crayfish, do not feed at all. 



Others, as the rabbits, field mice, and squirrels, are more or less 

 active and forage freely on whatever they can find, eating many 

 things which in summer they would spurn with scorn. To this 

 class belongs that intelligent but injurious animal the musquash 

 or muskrat. Those which inhabit the rivers and larger streams 

 live in burrows dug deep beneath the banks, but those inhabiting 

 sluggish streams and ponds usually construct a conical winter 

 house about three feet in diameter and from two to three feet in 

 height. These houses are made of coarse grasses, rushes, branches 

 of shrubs, and small pieces of driftwood, closely cemented to- 

 gether with stiff, clayey mud. The top of the house usually pro- 

 jects two feet or more above the water, and when sun-dried is so 



