PEPACTON 



stone wall and jutting ledge and large boulder, from 

 whence it makes raids upon the grass and clover 

 and sometimes upon the garden vegetables. It is 

 quite solitary in its habits, seldom more than one 

 inhabiting the same den, unless it be a mother and 

 her young. It is not now so much a woodchuck 

 as a fieldchuck. Occasionally, however, one seems 

 to prefer the woods, and is not seduced by the 

 sunny slopes and the succulent grass, but feeds, as 

 did his fathers before him, upon roots and twigs, 

 the bark of young trees, and upon various wood 

 plants. 



One summer day, as I was swimming across a 

 broad, deep pool in the creek in a secluded place in 

 the woods, I saw one of these sylvan chucks amid 

 the rocks but a few feet from the edge of the water 

 where I proposed to touch. He saw my approach, 

 but doubtless took me for some water-fowl, or for 

 some cousin of his of the muskrat tribe ; for he 

 went on with his feeding, and regarded me not till 

 I paused within ten feet of him and lifted myself 

 up. Then he did not know me, having, perhaps, 

 never seen Adam in his simplicity, but he twisted 

 his nose around to catch my scent; and the mo- 

 ment he had done so he sprang like a jumping-jack 

 and rushed into his den with the utmost precipi- 

 tation. 



The woodchuck is the true serf among our ani- 

 mals; he belongs to the soil, and savors of it. He 

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