28o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



this we still call flower viewing excur- 

 sions cherry- hun ting, maple-hunting and 

 so on. There arc. also, many instances 

 in our histor) of women who generally 

 persuaded their husbands or Fathers to 

 stop shooting for nun.- amusement. In 

 this way, love of nature and abhor- 

 rence i" cruelt) have become part and 

 parcel of our national character, and I 

 believe and sincerely hope that even 

 the urn, kin life of strenuosity will not 

 lead us astray very much. 



The Pet Woodchuck in its Winter's 

 "Sleep." 



Tn the spring of 1909, a little girl call- 

 ed at our pet house with a small box in 

 which was a young woodchuck. Sev- 

 eral admiring hoys and girls accom- 

 panied her. all repeatedly exclaiming" 

 in almost the same words and at the 

 same time, "Mister, mister, she's 

 caught a woodchuck right in her hands." 



The heroine of the occasion mod- 

 estly and meekly remarked, "I've brought 

 you a baby woodchuck." 



Upon inquiry it was ascertained that 

 she had seen a woodchuck, about one- 

 fourth the full size, running in the field 

 near her home. She gave chase, over- 

 took it and grabbed it witn < ne hand 



on the nape of the neck and the other 



on the back. She thus held it firmly 

 and safely, despite its efforts to bite 

 and to escape. A woodchuck, even a 

 small one. can bite fiercely, but she 

 held on bravely till the little animal 

 was placed in the box. 



The woodchuck was cared for in an 

 ordinary rabbit hutch. Only once 

 during the entire season was any part 

 of it seen except the tip of its nose 

 sticking out of the curiously wadded 

 mass of hay in the dark section of the 

 hutch. The food and water were once 

 a day placed in an accessible spot and 

 regularly disappeared every night. 

 Once in the evening we had a glimpse 

 of fur and heard a scurrying and 

 scratching of feet as he ran from the 

 runway to his dark bedroom. His 

 nose and just a little of his face, some- 

 times even up to his bright eyes, were 

 frequently pointed out to admiring 

 visitors. 



The last time that the food was 

 eaten was on Thanksgiving Day, 

 Thursday, November the twenty-fifth, 

 much later than the woodchuck in the 

 fields is supposed to be active. 



A few days later the entire mass of 



THE PET WOODCHUCK AT ARCADIA. 



