Woodchuck 



Only the other day an instance occurred which would seem 

 to indicate that the woodchuck of the woods retires to his den 

 much later in the season than his cousin of the fields, who is 

 seldom seen abroad much after the first of September. On the 

 first of November I came across a hollow ash tree, prostrate 

 above a little brook in a swamp not far from my home, and 

 noticed that some creature or other had been carrying dead 

 grass into it quite recently. I fixed a trap in the hollow and 

 the next day found a woodchuck held captive there, a typical wood- 

 chuck of the forest, as lean and active as a squirrel, with soft 

 white-tipped fur almost as thick as a coon's. When I released 

 him, he refused to run, but showed fight pluckily enough for 

 several minutes, and then unexpectedly bolted by me into his 

 hollow log, down which I could hear him scrambling to his 

 nest, which appeared to be situated at the end of the cavity 

 where the tree forked into several branches, for on breaking off 

 a small branch here I could see that the interior was filled with 

 new dried grass and leaves. Undoubtedly he intended spending 

 the winter there, and I imagine would find it quite as com- 

 fortable as the usual underground retreat, if not driven out by 

 the rising waters in time of thaw. I recall once seeing what 

 looked like a woodchuck's track in the snow about the last of 

 November. The animal that made it had been wandering about 

 the woods, prying into every stump and hollow log, perhaps in 

 search of a bed; but that was years ago, and I am not even 

 certain that it was a woodchuck's track at all. 



This year I have again seen a woodchuck out in Novem- 

 ber, a tawny old fellow whose den is near the top of a little 

 hillock beside a meadow, the same that I saw a fox trying to 

 unearth last April. 



As 1 crossed the meadow I could see him sitting in his 

 doorway in the dim sunlight of Indian summer, perhaps saying 

 goodby to his shadow and the sun and the clouds until spring returns ; 

 the turf beside his path was yet green and moist, and from 

 deep among the grass-roots the dreamy notes of crickets 

 sounded miles away, and seemed always on the point of ceas- 

 ing forever. 



A few days before I saw this same woodchuck carrying 

 home wild apples from a tree several rods from his hole; it may 

 be that last summer's drouth, which was unusually severe in 



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