362 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



tive days before their mating season in March. I wonder, there- 

 fore, whether the performance has not in it something of erotic 

 impulse. 



There is yet another mystery about the Chipmunk. 

 Animals which hibernate become enormously fat just before 

 their retirement. This is a supposed essential of the procedure 

 and yet the Chipmunk does not. Of forty specimens se- 

 cured by Rhoads" at Greenwood Lake, N. J., in the last of 

 October " no really fat one was found among them, though 

 the acorns, which they were busily harvesting and storing away, 

 were abundant." One might argue from this that their torpor 

 is not very profound. Kennicott and Bachman made observa- 

 tions that lead to this same conclusion. Of those that the latter 

 unearthed in January under five inches of snow, he says:^^ 

 *'They were not dormant, and seemed ready to bite when taken 

 in the hand; but they were not very active, and appeared some- 

 what sluggish and benumbed, which we conjectured was owing 

 to their being exposed to sudden cold from our having opened 

 their burrow." 



My own observations at Toronto would prove the lethargy 

 complete, and this raises the question as to whether the lati- 

 tude is not a factor in the case. 



HiBER- The Woodchuck goes down sharp on time with little 



regard to weather, but the Chipmunk's autumnal disappear- 

 ance seems prompted solely by the frost. If that comes in 

 September it makes its final bow the day before; if the cold 

 holds off till December, the Chipmunk postpones its departure 

 correspondingly. 



In my notes made during several years in Toronto I find 

 odd Chipmunk records all through October and this final entry 

 for November i, 1889: *' To-day the cat brought in a newly 

 killed Chipmunk, showing that they yet come above ground, 

 although there has been a good deal of frost; the weather is 

 now mild." 



^ Mam. Penna. and N. J., 1903, p. 62. *' Q. N. A., 1849, Vol. I, p. 70. 



