PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN WINTER. 331 



oftentimes in vast numbers, and prepare for their 

 winter's sleep. In an open winter this hibernation is 

 often interrupted, the animal emerging from its 

 retreat and seeking its usual summer haunts as though 

 spring had come again. Thus I have, on one occa- 

 sion, seen a soft-shelled turtle moving gracefully over 

 the bottom of a stream on a day in late December, 

 and have in mid-January captured snakes and sala- 

 manders from beneath a pile of driftwood, where they 

 had taken temporary refuge. 



With frogs, especially, this hibernation is not a per- 

 fect one, and there is a doubt if in a mild winter some 

 species hibernate at all. For example, the little cricket 

 frog or "peeper" has been seen many times in mid- 

 winter alongside the banks of flowing streams, and 

 during the open winter of 1888-89 numerous specimens 

 of leopard and green frogs were seen on different occa- 

 sions in December and January, while on February 

 18th they, together with the " peepers," were in full 

 chorus. 



Of our mammals, a few of the rodents or gnawers, 

 as the ground-hogs, gophers and chipmunks, hibernate 

 in burrows deep enough. to escape the cold, and either 

 feed on a stored supply of food, or, like the snakes 

 and crayfish, do not feed at all. 



Others, as the rabbits, field mice, and squirrels, are 



more or less active and forage freely on whatever they 



can find, eating many things which in summer they 



would spurn with scorn. To this class 



T! in Wkiter^ belon g s that intelligent but injurious 



animal the musquash or muskrat. 



Those which inhabit the rivers and larger streams live 



