262 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, 
brother and that have already gone thither and 
yon to set up for themselves, some liking to stay 
close to the ancestral burrow, others, having a roving 
disposition, emigrating to the next farm, or even as 
far as the further slope of the hill. Mindful of the 
parting advice of the old pair, — “ Above all things 
choose a place where a freshet or heavy rain will 
not flood you out of house and home,”— the young 
couple take a sunny hillside long ago selected. It 
is crowned by rocky woods bounded by an old 
stone wall, and thence slopes down in grassy past- 
ure to the meadows and gardens along the river. 
Many a deep hole—a sort of playhouse — has 
the young husband dug when a boy,— you may 
see New England pastures pitted with these bach- 
elor experiments in tunnelling; but now he must 
work steadily and for a purpose. His feet are 
armed with powerful claws, and the toes are partly 
webbed, so that they make excellent shovels; and 
when he encounters a bit of hard-packed earth, or 
a stone, he has a pickaxe in his strong front teeth, 
which quickly cuts down or loosens the obstacle. 
Shovelling the dust beneath him, he now and then 
stops and backs out, kicking vigorously, until he 
has swept all the loose stuff to the entrance of the 
tunnel, and has sent it flying outward. First, he 
slants steeply down for three or four feet, and 
then begins to work upward (and here is the ad- 
vantage of a hillslope site), so that there will be 
ready drainage away from his living room at the 
