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 hill-slope site), so that there will be 

 ready drainage away from his living room at the 



