UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



they remain unfrozen all winter. Our beech-woods 

 to-day, when there is a crop of nuts, fairly swarm 

 with chipmunks, and all of them have holes, but 

 rarely is there any sign of freshly dug earth. 



None of our wild creatures have as yet become 

 much modified, either in form or color, as a result of 

 the change in their environment by the disappear- 

 ance of the forests. They have changed in habits, 

 but the habits have not as yet set their stamp upon 

 the organism. Is it not probable that if the chip- 

 munk goes on scooping and packing soil with his 

 nose for long ages, his anatomy will in time become 

 better adapted to this new use.^ 



I fancy that in time the w^oodchuck, which from a 

 wood-dweller has now so commonly become a den- 

 izen of the fields, will change in color, at least. How 

 his form now stands out on the smooth surface of 

 the green fields ! His enemies can see him from afar. 

 Is this the reason that while feeding he momentar- 

 ily rises up on his hind legs and takes an observa- 

 tion? He is instinctively uneasy under his give-away 

 color. As a wood-dweller his colors were assimi- 

 lative and therefore protective, but now they ad- 

 vertise him to every enemy in the landscape. In the 

 course of ages he should become a much lighter 

 brown or gray — that is, if our theories as to assimi- 

 lative coloration are well founded. But there is no 

 doubt but that use and wont as well as environment do 

 in time leave their stamp upon every living creature. 



