220 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



in the earth does not remove all the material by 

 any means, but rather pounds or pushes it against 

 the sides, thus in one operation both enlarging the 

 bore and firming the walls. If you will note a 

 woodchuck burrow in rocky, packed soil, and one 

 in a loose, sandy loam, you will find that the earth 

 pile at the entrance is almost invariably larger in 

 the former case, while in the latter it is sometimes 

 hardly noticeable, there being only a hole into the 

 earth. 



There is a good deal of dispute, and considerable 

 conflict of evidence, regarding the attitude of the 

 mother woodchuck toward her young. It is gener- 

 ally stated that she turns them out at a very early 

 age into a cruel world, to forage for themselves; 

 there are even stories recorded of mother chucks 

 who pushed up their young, one by one, to the 

 mouth of a burrow to appease the dogs who were 

 trying to dig a way in. This is certainly a repre- 

 hensible line of conduct, but, fortunately, there are 

 compensating records of maternal devotion. My 

 most recent record is the testimony of a Yankee 

 farm boy who is a mighty hunter before the Lord 

 (and behind His back as well, for he hunts on Sun- 

 day) . Using nothing but rusty traps which he never 

 touches with his bare hands, he has covered the 

 outer wall of his father's barn with skins nailed up 

 to dry, the biggest always eliciting from visitors the 

 comment, "That must 'a' bin a hefty one!" Fred 

 says that the other day he caught a baby chuck in 

 one of his traps, and when he came up to the hole, 

 on his regular tour of inspection, the mother was 

 trying to get the little fellow out, and she refused to 



