UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



sions, they would have presented a far different 

 appearance. That ugly work-hole, with its bclit- 

 tered dooryard, would have been completely cov- 

 ered up, and the real entrance deftly concealed. 



It is highly improbable that every individual 

 chipmunk has a way peculiar to himself, as we hu- 

 mans so often have. Their dens and modes of pro- 

 cedure in digging them are as near alike as two peas, 

 or as two chipmunks themselves. Yet there remains 

 the mystery of an occasional hole without any pile of 

 earth anywhere in sight. I find several such each sea- 

 son, and I can offer no plausible explanation of them. 



I have found two weasels* dens on the margin of 

 a muck swamp in the woods that presented the same 

 insoluble problem — what had become of the bushel 

 or more of earth that must have been brought to the 

 surface .'^ Both the weasel and the chipmunk have 

 several galleries and one or more large chambers 

 or dining-halls, and how each manages to hide or 

 obliterate all the loose soil that must have been re- 

 moved is a question which has long puzzled me. If 

 we had an American Fabre, or a man who would 

 give himself up to the study of the life-histories of 

 our rodents, with the same patience and enthusiasm 

 that the wonderful Frenchman has had for the life- 

 histories of the insects, he would doubtless soon 

 solve the mystery for me. 



I used to think that the chipmunk carried away 

 the soil in his cheek pockets, and have so stated in 



37 



