48 The Raccoon 
deep snow, to avoid which is his real reason for stay- 
ing at home. I will give one fact that leads me to 
form this conclusion. It is this: If an icy crust is 
formed, the raccoon is ready to scurry about, no 
matter how deep the snow or how long the winter. 
The degree of hibernation of the raccoon and that of 
the woodchuck bear no resemblance to each other; 
for the woodchuck if taken from his burrow during 
his long sleep is awakened with the greatest difficulty, 
while the raccoon becomes ‘‘spry” with very little 
urging. 
In the spring the raccoon is greatly reduced in 
flesh, as John Burroughs says: ‘‘In March, that 
brief summary of a bear, the raccoon comes out of 
his den in the ledges and leaves his sharp digitigrade 
track upon the snow,—travelling not unfrequently in 
pairs,—a lean, hungry couple, bent on pillage and 
plunder. They have an unenviable time of it,—feast- 
ing in summer and fall, hibernating in winter, and 
starving in spring. In April Ihave found the young 
of the previous year creeping about the fields, so 
reduced by starvation as to be quite helpless, and 
offering no resistance to my taking them up by the 
tail and carrying them home.”’ 
After hibernation the old raccoons are not, as a 
rule, so much reduced in flesh as the younger ones, 
