70 THE BURROWS AND GALLERIES OF THE RODENTS. 



ny's life a constant dread of being suddenly snatched up by a spring-snare, 

 or half crushed under a figure-four. There is a kind of hare which lives 

 out-of-doors all winter, even in the farthest arctic lands, when it would 

 seem that everything was buried in snow. The little fellow knows how 

 to get down to the grass-roots, however, and never wanders too far from 

 the stunted red willows that grow along the river banks, and whose bark 

 keeps him alive. Bark, indeed, forms the staple of hare food in winter, 

 as you will quickly learn if yon plant a young orchard. 



The field-mice, however, which are not always asleep from Decem- 

 ber to March, do a great deal of the damage charged to the hares. The 

 mice have galleries under the grass-roots and the hollow roots of old trees, 

 where they store away supplies of grain, seeds of grasses and weeds, etc., 

 upon which to live until spring. Not content with this, however, they 

 push tunnels in all directions under the snow, and nibble the tender young 

 bark of small trees. The wood-rats do not make underground galleries, 

 but pile up in the woods a hollow heap of sticks and leaves, where they 

 store their nuts and seeds and endure the cold weather; while the house 

 of the musk-rat, constructed of marsh-grass and rushes, stands two or three 

 feet high above the reedy strip at low-water mark, and is able to bear 

 your weight. This house has a door-way beneath the water, so that the 

 occupant can pass out and in, even though the river be covered with ice, 

 and so reach the aquatic plants and the TJnio clams on which he lives. 

 Sometimes the musk-rats make burrows in the banks instead of houses 

 outside. How the beaver builds himself a strong winter's home inside his 

 artificial pond, or inhabits a snug burrow in quiet all winter, is also so 

 well known to you that I can hasten on to the woodclmck, gophers, and 

 chipmunks. 



These gnawers dig burrows and make galleries underground like larger 

 mice, and like them stay therein during the bad weather, tucking their 

 furry tails a little closer about them in freezing days, and on very pleas- 

 ant ones coming out to get a bit of sweet air. Yon know the old tale 

 about the woodchuck's showing himself on St. Valentine's day, to see 

 whether he can venture to stay above ground "for good," or must go 

 back for another month. 



The various ground-squirrels, gophers, spermophiles, and their kin, all 

 lay up in their subterranean burrows stores of seeds and other food ; but 

 they speedily fall into so lethargic a condition of almost perpetual sleep 

 that these are not greatly drawn upon, so that the comparatively small 

 amount gathered in the autumn is able to last through to spring. 



The arboreal squirrels — true squirrels — make for themselves snuggeries 



