Ze}t BcKi of ti}t BaxC^ 



nature provide, so many did the seven chipmunks 

 leave us ! 



Peace between me and the chipmunks had been 

 signed before the strawberry season closed, and the 

 pact still holds. Other things have occurred since to 

 threaten it, however. Among them, an article in a 

 recent number of a carefully edited out-of-door mag- 

 azine, of wide circulation. Herein the chipmunk 

 family was most roundly rated, in fact condemned to 

 annihilation because of its wicked taste for birds' 

 eggs and for young birds. Numerous photographs 

 accompanied the article, showing the red squirrel 

 with eggs in his mouth, but no such proof (even the 

 red squirrel photographs I strongly believe were done 

 from a stuffed squirrel) of chipmunk's guilt, though 

 he was counted equally bad and, doubtless, will suffer 

 with chickaree at the hands of those who took the 

 article seriously. 



I believe that is a great mistake. Indeed, I be- 

 lieve the whole article a deliberate falsehood, con- 

 cocted in order to sell the fake photographs. Chip- 

 munk is not an egg-sucker, else I should have found 

 it out. But because I never caught him at it does not 

 mean that no one else has. It does mean, however, 



i8o 



