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THE WOODCHUCK 



In the Middle and Eastern States our wood- 

 chuck takes the place, in some respects, of the 

 English rabbit, burrowing in every hillside and 

 under every stone wall and jutting ledge and 

 large boulder, whence it makes raids upon the 

 grass and clover and sometimes upon the gar- 

 den vegetables. It is quite solitary in its habits, 

 seldom more than one inhabiting the same den, 

 unless it be a mother and her young. It is not 

 now so much a wood chuck as a field chuck. 

 Occasionally, however, one seems to prefer the 

 woods, and is not seduced by the sunny slopes 

 and the succulent grass, but feeds, as did his 

 fathers before him, upon roots and twigs, the 

 bark of young trees, and upon various wood 

 plants. 



One summer day, as I was swimming across a 

 broad, deep pool in the creek in a secluded place 

 in the woods, I saw one of these sylvan chucks 

 amid the rocks but a few feet from the edge of 

 the water where I proposed to touch. He saw 



