THE WAY OF A WOODCHUCK 139 



nearby I dare say Charon might have ferried 

 both shades over the Styx together. No, the 

 woodchuck is not so easy to get. He is quite 

 Hkely to whip his own weight in most anything 

 that forces him to do battle. 



But I have never known a woodchuck to do 

 battle that was not forced upon him. In point 

 of fact he is one of the most home-loving, peace- 

 ful animals I have known. He is the original 

 home-body and if the market where he is forced 

 to seek supplies is not near enough to his home 

 he moves the home nearer the market. In that 

 often lies his undoing. His safety is in the 

 woodland border or in the far pasture stone wall. 

 There if he would content himself with aromatic 

 barks and wild pasture herbs he might dwell un- 

 harmed of man, who is his chief enemy. But he 

 loves the clover field, and often his first move 

 toward disaster is coming up from the pasture 

 wall and digging a burrow in the midst of the 

 clover where he soon has regular paths which 

 take him from one rich clump to another. After 

 that he sniffs the kitchen garden, and the descent 

 to Avernus is easy. He moves in to the borders, 

 finds a crevice or digs a hole, and revels. Nor 

 does he recognize the place as Avernus — which it 



