A CLEVER BEASTIE 



which time and the elements have obliterated. But 

 what has become of the excavated earth of the new 

 spring entrances, which in some cases must be from 

 a tunnel eight or ten feet long, is still a mystery. 



If my reader can surprise a chipmunk digging his 

 hole, as I did last September, he will be very lucky. 

 No doubt he has found along the road or on the 

 borders of the woods a fresh pile of earth, usually 

 about a bushel of it, with a clean-cut hole down 

 through the turf near it, and with not a grain of soil, 

 or any sign of a path between the pile of earth and 

 the hole. If he investigated, he may, in some cases, 

 have found in the pile of soil one or more earth- 

 stained stones that he could not put back into the 

 hole out of which they appeared to have come. 

 There is no deception or sleight-of-hand about it — • 

 those stones actually came out of the ground with 

 that pile of earth. But the hole out of which they 

 came is plugged up and covered up by the pile of 

 earth and is no longer used. They did not come out 

 of the obscure hole which is now the only entrance 

 to the den. 



