My First Summer 



to their music with their tails, which at 

 each chip describe half circles from side 

 to side. Not even the Douglas squirrel is 

 surer-footed or more fearless. I have seen 

 them running about on sheer precipices of 

 the Yosemite walls seemingly holding on 

 with as little effort as flies, and as uncon- 

 scious of danger, where, if the slightest slip 

 were made, they would have fallen two 

 or three thousand feet. How fine it would 

 be could we mountaineers climb these tre- 

 mendous cliffs with the same sure grip ! The 

 venture I made the other day for a view 

 of the Yosemite Fall, and which tried my 

 nerves so sorely, this little Tamias would 

 have made for an ear of grass. 



The woodchuck (Arctomys monax} of the 

 bleak .mountain-tops is a very different sort 

 of mountaineer the most bovine of ro- 

 dents, a heavy eater, fat, aldermanic in bulk 

 and fairly bloated, in his high pastures, like 

 a cow in a clover field. One woodchuck 

 would outweigh a hundred chipmunks, and 

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