sock of sedge, they are built upon, and inclose, 

 a part of a log or stump. 



This lodge life is surely a cozy, jolly way of 

 passing the winter. The possums are inclined 

 to club together whenever they can find stumps 

 that are roomy enough ; but the muskrats 

 habitually live together through the winter. 

 Here, in the single room of their house, one 

 after another will come, until the walls can hold 

 no more ; and, curling up after their night of 

 foraging, they will spend the frigid days bliss- 

 fully rolled into one warm ball of dreamful 

 sleep. Let it blow and snow and freeze out- 

 side ; there are six inches of mud-and-reed wall 

 around them, and, wrapped deep in rich, warm 

 fur, they hear nothing of the blizzard and care 

 nothing for the cold. 



Nor are they prisoners of the cold here. The 

 snow has drifted over their house till only a 

 tiny mound appears ; the ice has sealed the 

 pond and locked their home against the storm 

 and desolation without : but the main roadway 

 from the house is below the drifting snow, and 

 they know where, among the stumps and but- 

 ton-bushes, the warm-nosed watchers have kept 

 [176] 



