FIELD AND STUDY 



angry altercation there under the sod — tones of 

 complaint, but not of pain. Presently a head popped 

 up, evidently urged from behind, but it dropped 

 back on seeing me so near. Then it hastily appeared 

 again, and as I withdrew a few paces, the chipmunk 

 shot out and fled. 



This nest was very artfully excavated. Instead of 

 the pile of freshly dug earth that usually attracts 

 the eye where a chipmunk has recently been at 

 work, there was only a little curtain of earth on the 

 side of the bank, strung along four or five feet with 

 a roll of grass and moss above it, and fading off into 

 the soil of the bank that the road-menders had ex- 

 posed. Only the eye of a passer-by looking for such 

 signs would have noticed it. It was as if the squirrel 

 had had a little tramway a few feet long at the top 

 of the bank imder the roll of moss and turf, and had 

 dumped his newly dug earth from that and let it 

 stream down the bank until it found the angle of 

 repose. The entrance was a clean-cut hole hidden 

 in the grass on the top of the bank. 



When one chipmunk receives favors in the way 

 of extra food, all his neighbors seem to find it out, 

 and, I suspect, m-ake an effort to equalize things a 

 little. One season I tried to find out whether a chip- 

 munk's provident instinct would get the better of 

 his prudence and lead him to add to his stores until 

 he had no room left in his den for himself. I supplied 

 a greedy fellow with about a peck of hickory-nuts, 



148 



