Woodchuck 
Only the other day an instance occurred which would seem 
to indicate that the woodchuck of the woods retires to his den 
much later in the season than his cousin of the fields, who is 
seldom seen abroad much after the first of September. On the 
first of November I came across a hollow ash tree, prostrate 
above a little brook in a swamp not far from my home, and 
noticed that some creature or other had been carrying dead 
grass into it quite recently. I fixed a trap in the hollow and 
the next day found a woodchuck held captive there, a typical wood- 
chuck of the forest, as lean and active as a squirrel, with soft 
white-tipped fur almost as thick as a coon’s. When I released 
him, he refused to run, but showed fight pluckily enough for 
several minutes, and then unexpectedly bolted by me into his 
hollow log, down which I could hear him scrambling to his 
nest, which appeared to be situated at the end of the cavity 
where the tree forked into several branches, for on breaking off 
a small branch here I could see that the interior was filled with 
new dried grass and leaves. Undoubtedly he intended spending 
the winter there, and I imagine would find it quite as com- 
fortable as the usual underground retreat, if not driven out by 
the rising waters in time of thaw. I recall once seeing what 
looked like a woodchuck’s track in the snow about the last of 
November. The animal that made it had been wandering about 
the woods, prying into every stump and hollow log, perhaps in 
search of a bed; but that was years ago, and | am not even 
certain that it was a woodchuck’s track at all. 
This year | have again seen a woodchuck out in Novem- 
ber, a tawny old fellow whose den is near the top of a: little 
hillock beside a meadow, the same that I saw a fox trying to 
unearth last April. 
As I crossed the meadow I could see him sitting in his 
doorway in the dim sunlight of Indian summer, perhaps saying 
goodby to his shadow and the sun and the clouds until spring returns; 
the turf beside his path was yet green and moist, and from 
deep among the grass-roots the dreamy notes of crickets 
sounded miles away, and seemed always on the point of ceas- 
ing forever. 
A few days before I saw this same woodchuck carrying 
home wild apples from a tree several rods from his hole; it may 
be that last summer’s drouth, which was unusually severe in 
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