1X A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 269 
still quite perfect, and even the woodchuck’s sys- 
tem of life has room for improvement. As it 
sends him to bed at the autumnal equinox, so it bids 
him awake at the vernal equinox, and this is too 
early in modern New England. They say that he 
often comes out even earlier, — some will tell you 
on Candlemas Day, and others on St. Valentine’s 
Day (sometimes called Woodchuck Day by the 
Yankees, who do not take much stock in foreign 
saints); then he looks for his shadow, and if he 
can see it he takes it as a sign that he would better 
return to his bed. 
“The festive ground-hog wakes to-day, 
And with reluctant roll 
He waddles up his sinuous way 
And pops forth from his hole. 
He rubs his little blinking eyes 
So heavy from long sleep, 
That he may read the tell-tale skies — 
Which is it — wake or sleep? 
“ And next he turns three times around, 
For it is written so, 
That if his shadow ’s on thé ground 
Or outlined in the snow, 
He fain must tumble in again, 
For so tradition says, 
And snooze away down in his den 
For forty more long days.” 
That is the way a poet of the newspaper-corner 
expresses it; but I have never beheld guch an 
