Family SCIURIDAE 133 



By late October or thereabouts, when most native herbs and 

 grasses are dry, when the amount of daylight has greatly de- 

 creased, and the days as well as the nights are frosty, the wood- 

 chuck gradually becomes less active above ground and is soon no 

 longer seen. In its burrow, it sinks into the deep sleep of true 

 hibernation, in which the heart beat and respiratory rates are 

 only one-tenth as fast as in normal life. Should a warm spell 

 occur, the woodchuck may arouse and leave its hibernating cham- 

 ber for a brief time. Indeed, the groundhog, as the woodchuck 

 is sometimes called, may even be above ground for a short time 

 on the second day of February, but not motivated by any desire 

 to view its shadow. 



Signs. — During the growing seasons of the year, woodchuck 

 tracks, fig. 29, may often be found along creek beds or on dusty 

 or muddy roads in woods. The four-toed prints of the front feet 

 and the five-toed prints of the hind feet are closely bunched 

 when the woodchuck runs; the distance between each set is nor- 

 mally 12 inches. About 4 inches separate the sets of front and 

 hind prints when the chuck is walking. Each individual foot- 

 print is about li 2 inches long. 



A woodchuck burrow is usually 6 to 12 inches wide at each 

 of its two or three entrances but soon narrows inside and at 

 a depth of 2 feet may be only 4 to 7 inches in diameter. Because 

 the woodchuck keeps its burrow clean by constant enlarging, 

 there is usually a fresh mound of loose dirt near one or another 

 of the openings. A burrow deserted by a woodchuck and occu- 

 pied by a skunk or a rabbit does not have such a fresh mound. 

 Radiating from the entranceway of a woodchuck burrow are 

 partially concealed paths or runways which serve as avenues 

 to food supplies. Closely cropped herbage near the entrance is 

 an indication that a woodchuck occupies the burrow. 



Distribution. — The woodchuck, common in many parts of 

 Illinois, occurs the length and breadth of the state, with the 

 possible exception of some parts of the level black soil regions of 

 central Illinois. Only one subspecies, Alarmota monax monax 

 (Linnaeus), is known in this state. The species ranges from 

 Labrador westward to central British Columbia, then northward 

 through Yukon to eastern Alaska; southward as far as northern 

 Idaho in the western part of the United States and as far as 

 northeastern Oklahoma and northern Georgia and Alabama in 

 the central and eastern parts. 



