IX A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 255 



pressed down, dust-tight, when the animal is 

 tunnelUng. 



The young shoots of the grasses and weeds 

 smell good, and the cubs exercise their white new 

 teeth in nibbling these a little, but the mother 

 guides them on further to a treat — a bunch of 

 plantain ; and there they get their first out-door 

 meal. As they grow older they learn to like many 

 different vegetables, but never lose their special 

 fondness for the juicy plantain. 



Day by day they develop in size, strength, and 

 accomplishments. As playful as other youngsters, 

 they roll, and tumble, and chase one another, but 

 never go so far away that they cannot scuttle back 

 to the ancestral burrow the instant the warning 

 whistle of some watchful companion tells them a 

 boy, or dog, or ether dreaded creature is coming. 

 In the old days, before the Yankees took the 

 trouble to " improve " a country that, in some 

 respects at least, was better before they began, 

 the woodchucks all lived in the woods — 



" As their name implies," you say .? 



Hold on a bit, my friend. That word "wood- 

 chuck " is bad English for a half-forgotten Indian 

 term, and has nothing to do with "woods" at all. 

 But let us go on. 



And although often, doubtless, they sought the 

 grassy glades and river-bottoms for food, they 

 were not tenants of the open country, and were 

 scarcely known on the Western prairies until 



