THE CHIPMUNK 17 



s, the woods will often be pervaded by an 

 undertone of sound, produced by their multi- 

 tudinous clucking, as they sit hear their dens. 

 It is one of the characteristic sounds of fall. 



I was much amused one October in watching a 

 chipmunk carry nuts and other food into his den. 

 He had made a well-defined path from his door 

 out through the weeds and dry leaves into the ter- 

 ritory where his feeding-ground lay. The path 

 was a crooked one ; it dipped under weeds, under 

 some large, loosely piled stones, under a pile of 

 chestnut posts, and then followed the remains of 

 an old wall. Going and coming, his motions 

 were like clock-work. He always went by spurts 

 and sudden sallies. He was never for one mo- 

 ment off his guard. He would appear at the 

 mouth of his den, look quickly about, take a 

 few leaps to a tussock of grass, pause a breath 

 with one foot raised, slip quickly a few yards 

 over some dry leaves, pause again by a stump 

 beside a path, rush across the path to the pile of 

 loose stones, go under the first and over the sec- 

 ond, gain the pile of posts, make his way through 

 that, survey his course a half moment from the 

 other side of it, and then dart on to some other 

 cover, and presently beyond my range, where I 

 think he gathered acorns, as there were no other 

 nut-bearing trees than oaks near. In four or 



