94 NOTES BY THE WAY. 
his dens and lurking-places, but it is not at all dis 
agreeable in the clover-scented air, and his shrilf 
whistle, as he takes to his hole or defies the farm dog 
from the interior of the stone wall, is a pleasant sum- 
mer sound. In form and movement the woodchuck 
is not captivating. His body is heavy and flabby 
Indeed, such a flaccid, fluid, pouchy carcass, I have 
never before seen. It has absolutely no muscular ten- 
sion or rigidity, but is as baggy and shaky as a skin 
filled with water. Let the rifleman shoot one while 
it lies basking on a sidelong rock, and its body slumps 
off, and rolls and spills down the hill, as if it were a 
mass of bowels only. The legs of the woodchuck are 
short and stout, and made for digging rather than 
running. ‘The latter operation he performs by short 
leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. Fora 
short distance he can make very good time, but he 
seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and when 
surprised in that predicament, makes little effort to 
escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the danger squarely 
in the face. i 
I knew a farmer in New York who had a very 
large bob-tailed churn-dog by the name of Cuff. The 
farmer kept a large dairy and made a great deal of 
butter, and it was the business of Cuff to spend nearly 
the half of each summer day treading the endless 
round of the churning-machine. During the remainder 
of the day he had plenty of time to sleep, and rest, 
and sit on his hips and survey the landscape. One 
day, sitting thus, he discovered a woodechuck about 
forty rods from the house, on a steep side-hill, feeding 
about near his hole, which was beneath a large rock. 
The old dog, forgetting his stiffness, and remembering 
the fun he had had with woodchucks in his earlier 
