214 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



Just as the potato-bug was a North American 

 native which didn't originally live on the potato- 

 vine > so the woodchuck was a native mammal 

 which didn't burrow in pastures, orchards, and gar- 

 dens, and live on vegetables, but in the glades, or 

 even the depths of the forest, where he lived on a 

 less succulent diet. Here the early settlers found 

 him, and named him woodchuck, the chuck being, 

 it is said, a Devonshire term for little pig. How 

 long it was before the woodchuck found, in turn, the 

 gardens of the early settlers is not recorded, but 

 judging from his present-day fearlessness even in the 

 face of the most persistent persecution, it could not 

 have been long before he began to tunnel in the 

 clearings and to eat the vegetables of the Pilgrim 

 Fathers, taxing their patience and putting to a 

 severe test their rigid restrictions on denunciatory 

 expletives. And the woodchuck has- been with us 

 ever since, and ever since he has been putting the 

 patience of men to the trial. 



The woodchuck (Arctomys monax) known also 

 as the ground-hog, and less frequently as the Mary- 

 land marmot is a heavy, thickset, short-legged 

 animal, which grows to a full length of about two 

 feet. In color it is a grizzly yellow, varied with 

 black and rust. It has black feet, the furry hair 

 stopping short at the wrists like the sleeves of a 

 jersey, and a rather short, bushy tail. It ranges 

 from New England to Georgia, and westward to 

 North Dakota, and it has cousins cf the marmot 

 family in the colder North and in various parts of 

 the West. Its best-known characteristic, of course, 

 is its burrowing propensity and its long, winter 



