IX A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 2?I 



until the seasons have slipped back, and now the 

 animal goes to sleep long before he need, and 

 wakes up a month or two before he ought. 



An astronomer tells me that there is much 

 force in this theory, but points out a trifling diffi- 

 culty in the fact that it is wrong end to, since the 

 effect of the /recession of the equinoxes is to 

 advance, rather than retard, the /recession of the 

 seasons ! You can study the matter out for your- 

 self and welcome. The woodchucks have shown 

 themselves otherwise possessed of so much clear- 

 headedness and philosophic wisdom, that I expect 

 soon to hear of their calling a council like that 

 which reformed our human calendar, and setting 

 this matter straight. That done, I see nothing left 

 for the most captious woodchuck to desire, and the 

 rest of us may then admire one bit of the world 

 perfected ! 



NOTE. Much has been written about our woodchucks. 

 Technical descriptions of all the species and varieties will be 

 found in Dr. Elliot's " Synopsis " (see page 1 16). Their hiber- 

 nation is discussed in my "Life of Mammals"; and more fully 

 treated of in Wesley Mills's " Nature and Development of 

 Animal Intelligence." A very full and pleasing biography of 

 the animal in New England is that by W. E. Cram in Stone 

 and Cram's "American Animals' 1 ; while other detailed ac- 

 counts may be found in Merriam's " Natural History of the 

 Adirondacks " (Transactions Linnaan Society of New York, 

 Vol. I, 1882), in Audubon and Bachman's "Quadrupeds of 

 North America," in Godman's " American Natural History," 

 in Mrs. Wright's " Four-footed Americans," John Burroughs's 

 "Pepacton," Rowland Robinson's "In New England Fields 

 and Woods," Silas Lottridge's "Animal Snapshots," and in 

 various scientific periodicals. 



