94 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



his dens and lurking-places, but it is not at all dis* 

 agreeable in the clover-scented air, and his shrill 

 whistle, as he takes to his hole or defies the farm dog 

 from the interior of the stone wall, is a pleasant sum» 

 mer sound. In form and movement the woodchuck 

 is not captivating. His body is heavy and flabby. 

 Indeed, such a flaccid, fluid, pouchy carcass, I have 

 never before seen. It has absolutely no muscular ten-^ 

 sion or rigidity, but is as baggy and shaky as a skin 

 filled with water. Let the rifleman shoot one while 

 it lies basking on a sidelong rock, and its body slumps 

 off, and rolls and spills down the hill, as if it were a 

 mass of bowels only. The legs of the woodchuck are 

 short and stout, and made for digging rather than 

 running. The latter operation he performs by short 

 leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. For a 

 short distance he can make very good time, but ha 

 seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and when 

 surprised in that predicament, makes little effort to 

 escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the danger squarely 

 in the face. 



I knew a farmer in New York who had a very 

 large bob-tailed churn-dog by the name of Cuff. The 

 farmer kept a large dairy and made a great deal of 

 butter, and it was the business of Cuff to spend nearly 

 the half of each summer day treading the endless 

 round of the churning-machine. During the remainder 

 of the day he had plenty of time to sleep, and rest.^ 

 and sit on his hips and survey the landscape. One 

 day, sitting thus, he discovered a woodchuck about 

 forty rods from the house, on a steep side-hill, feeding 

 about near his hole, which was beneath a large rock. 

 The old dog, forgetting his stiffness, and remembering 

 the fun he had had with woodchucks in his earlier 



