not he so he lays in a good store of chestnuts 

 and makes all snug for the cold weather. 



While the moral of the ant and the grasshopper 

 will doubtless always hold good, there is little 

 incentive for the grasshopper to become thrifty as 

 few would live to enjoy the results. But the 

 woodchuck might well profit by the example of 

 the chipmunk, who loves his comfort and a well- 

 stocked larder in which to snooze away the winter 

 months, a round of dinners and after-dinner naps. 

 Besides his hordes of beech and chestnuts, he is 

 credited with gathering the seeds of the buttercup 

 as well as buckwheat and grass seed. I have seen 

 him on the tips of witch-hazel twigs biting off 

 the nutlets of the preceding year. He has some 

 variety at his table then. The buttercups must 

 b^e in the nature of a delicacy his sweetcakes 

 perhaps. 



As the weather grows colder the vegetation 

 seems to droop hourly, the bare earth becoming 

 visible, except where the dry leaves have roofed 

 themselves over the huckleberry bushes or in the 

 thick tangle of briers. The rabbit must feel 

 himself rather too much in evidence as the ground 

 is thus exposed, and perforce relies more on his 



145 



