134 NATURE'S CALENDAR 



Tune 14 ^^^ fairly well-grown and learning the 



road to hen-coops and cornfields; the 



prickly children of Father Porcupine are 

 six weeks old or so, but Madam Musk- 

 rat has hardly let her youngsters out of 

 the house yet. The porcupines come 

 down from the trees now, and wander 

 about the meadows a good deal, browsing 

 on new grass; and at night they seek the 

 edges of ponds, and gorge themselves on 

 the succulent young shoots of sagittaria, 

 and later eat the lilies. 



All the squirrels have well-grown fami- 

 lies, though those of the warmth-loving 

 flying squirrels may hardly be weaned in 

 the more northerly regions. The gray, 

 fox, and red squirrels are moving about 

 in family parties, studying their ways of 

 life, living largely on maple keys, and 

 nibbling at a good many of the harder 

 sorts of chrysalids and such beetles as 

 they come across. The fathers and big 

 brothers are absent from such family- 

 parties, however, having been driven 

 away by the females as soon as the 

 young were born,* and now rambling far 

 away through the woods in search of ad- 

 ventures. 



In a similar way young weasels and 

 minks are now beginning to move about 

 with their mothers and take lessons in 

 the predatory arts of which their parents 



*See my Wild Neighbors (New York, 

 i8q7), chap. i. 



