130 PEPACTON 



The muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, 

 but is pretty active all winter. In December I 

 noticed in my walk where they had made excur- 

 sions of a few yards to an orchard for frozen apples. 

 One day, along a little stream, I saw a mink track 

 amid those of the muskrat; following it up, I pres- 

 ently came to blood and other marks of strife upon 

 the snow beside a stone wall. Looking in between 

 the stones, I found the carcass of the luckless rat, 

 with its head and neck eaten away. The mink had 

 made a meal of him. 



CHEATING THE SQUIRRELS 



For the largest and finest chestnuts I had last 

 fall I was indebted to the gray squirrels. Walking 

 through the early October woods one day, I came 

 upon a place where the ground was thickly strewn 

 with very large unopened chestnut burrs. On exam- 

 ination I found that every burr had been cut square 

 off with about an inch of the stem adhering, and 

 not one had been left on the tree. It was not acci- 

 dent, then, but design. Whose design ? The squir- 

 rels'. The fruit was the finest I had ever seen in 

 the woods, and some wise squirrel had marked it 

 for his own. The burrs were ripe, and had just 

 begun to divide, not "threefold," but fourfold, "to 

 show the fruit within." The squirrel that had 

 taken all this pains had evidently reasoned with 

 himself thus: "Now, these are extremely fine chest- 

 nuts, and I want them ; if I wait till the burrs open 

 on the tree, the crows and jays will be sure to carry 



