] I IN THE OPEN I [ 



ment is evident; the sun feels good to him. He 

 is a chilly body, and, like the snakes, cannot get 

 any too much warmth. Now he sits upon his 

 haunches and takes a deliberate survey, then pokes 

 some greens into his mouth with his forepaws. If 

 his sharp ears bring him no suspicious sound, he 

 drops upon all fours and goes to browsing again. 

 No one has explained why the woodchuck holes 

 up so early in the autumn and comes out at such 

 an unseasonable time in the spring. He goes in 

 while there is still plenty to eat, and reappears 

 when there is scarcely anything to be had. Pos- 

 sibly the habit was acquired in some remote past 

 when the winter may have come earlier in the 

 year, and the woodchucks, being a conservative 

 race and loath to change their ways, have never 

 adapted themselves, but go to bed now as it were 

 in the middle of the afternoon and get up before 

 daybreak, impelled to this early rising by hunger. 

 Soon we shall be walking over his head, but it 

 will not disturb his nap. He will have rolled 

 himself up in a ball for a four or five months' 

 snooze in company with all the little frogs and 

 snakes a sleepy crowd. The chipmunk is like- 

 wise a chilly body, but he is not going to fast 



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