ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 263 



inner extremity. He does not care much whether 

 his tunnel is straight or curved. If he meets a 

 rock or large root, he goes around it ; and he usually 

 excavates two or three short branches, one of 

 which is afterward used as a place for depositing 

 all excrement and refuse. At last, twenty or twenty- 

 five feet from the entrance, he stops, and scoops 

 out a chamber big enough for the two of them to 

 turn around in comfortably. This done, the young 

 wife makes a basket of her cheeks, and carries in 

 enough grass for a soft bed. Meanwhile her 

 mate has extended a branch of the tunnel to the 

 surface, opening there, beneath a tussock of grass 

 or stump or stone, a small exit against a time of 

 need, as when a mink, weasel, or big snake in- 

 vades the premises; but no hillock of earth is 

 thrown out around this back door, to attract atten- 

 tion. 



Such is the home of the old-fashioned contented 

 woodchuck family ; but that admirable disposition 

 in this race to steadfastly reduce exertion to a mini- 

 mum, is leading the more thoughtful ones to get 

 rid of the last vestige of the labor slavery of their 

 ancestors, and release themselves from even house- 

 building. Many young 'chucks, nowadays, there- 

 fore, simply renovate abandoned burrows of the year 

 before, for it is the fashion in Arctomid society to 

 change the dwelling-place annually ; or they seek a 

 retreat in the hollow that nature has kindly opened 

 for their accommodation beneath and within some 



