The Wit of the Wild 



r 



they gather and carry in bundles to their bur- 

 rows or to places near by, where they spread 

 them out to dry." They will climb a small bush 

 some distance in order to cut off the tender up- 

 per twigs. These provisions vary with the local- 

 ity, and what is there available. Twigs of thim- 

 ble-berry, mountain-ash, salal, willow and other 

 shrubs, whose bark they find edible, are common 

 in the stacks ; but most of all they gather brake- 

 ferns, sometimes a bushel or more in a single 

 heap over or close to the principal mouth of 

 the burrow. After these have been thoroughly 

 dried and cured in the sun they are dragged 

 into the innermost burrows, and used to sustain 

 the very simple requirements of a life reduced 

 to inertness by having very little to do or think 

 about during the long months of imprisonment 

 by cold and snow. They are very fat and 

 sleek when they go in in the fall, but look decid- 

 edly seedy when they reappear in the spring. 



How completely the showt'ls hibernate it is 



hard to determine: probably more than do the 



conies, and apparently far more than do their 



neighbors of the upper edge of the woods, 



^260 So* 



