NOTES BY THE WAY. 179 



t 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 

 tension 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 sideling 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 wood- 

 chuck are short and stout, and made for digging 

 rather than running. The latter operation he per- 

 forms by short leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the 

 ground. For a 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 dan- 

 ger squarely in the face. 



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 end- 

 less round of the churning-machine. During the re- 



o o 



mainder of the da^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 woodchuck 

 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 

 "emembering the fun he had had with woodchucks in 

 his earlier days, started off at his highest speed 



