WINTER WAYS OF ANIMALS 171 



a porcupine. Both winter and summer he 

 seemed blindly content. There were ten thou- 

 sand trees around, and winter or summer there 

 were meals to last a life-time. Always he had 

 a dull, sleepy look and I doubt if he ever gets 

 enthusiastic enough to play. 



Birds that remain all winter in snowy lands 

 enjoy themselves. Like the winter animals, 

 usually they are well fed. But most species of 

 birds with their airplane wings fly up and down 

 the earth, go northward in the spring and south- 

 ward in the autumn, and thus linger where sum- 

 mer lingers and move with it when it moves. 



Around me the skunks hibernated about two 

 months each year; some winters possibly not 

 at all. Generally the entire skunk family, from 

 two to eight, hole up together. One den which 

 I looked into in mid-winter had a stack of eight 

 sleepy skunks in it. A bank had caved off ex- 

 posing them. I left them to sleep on, for had I 

 wakened them they might not have liked it. 

 And who wants to mix up with a skunk? 



Another time a snowslide tore a big stump 

 out by the roots and disclosed four skunks be- 

 neath. When I arrived, about half an hour 

 after the tear-up, the skunks were blinking and 

 squirming as though apparently too drowsy to 

 decide whether to get up or to have another 

 good sleep. 



