My First Summer 



to their music with their tails, which at 

 each chip describe half circles from side 

 to side. Not even the Douglas squirrel is 

 surer-footed or more fearless. I have seen 

 them running about on sheer precipices of 

 the Yosemite walls seemingly holding on 

 with as little effort as flies, and as uncon- 

 scious of danger, where, if the slightest slip 

 were made, they would have fallen two 

 or three thousand feet. How fine it would 

 be could we mountaineers climb these tre- 

 mendous cliffs with the same sure grip ! The 

 venture I made the other day for a view 

 of the Yosemite Fall, and which tried my 

 nerves so sorely, this little Tamias would 

 have made for an ear of grass. 



The woodchuck (Arctomys monax) of the 

 bleak mountain-tops is a very different sort 

 of mountaineer the most bovine of ro- 

 dents, a heavy eater, fat, aldermanic in bulk 

 and fairly bloated, in his high pastures, like 

 a cow in a clover field. One woodchuck 

 would outweigh a hundred chipmunks, and 



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