CIRCUIT OF THE SUMMER HILLS 



cruel desire to go to the bottom of the question of 

 the chipmunk's winter stores, I dug out one after 

 he had got his house settled for the season. I found 

 his den three feet below the surface of the ground — 

 just beyond the frost-line — and containing nearly 

 four quarts of various seeds, most of them the little 

 black grains of wild buckwheat — two hundred and 

 fifty thousand of them, I estimated — all cleaned of 

 their husks as neatly as if done by some patent ma- 

 chinery. 



How many perilous journeys along stone walls 

 and through weedy tangles this store of seeds repre- 

 sented ! One would say at least a thousand trips, be- 

 set by many dangers from hawks and cats and 

 weasels and other enemies of the little rodent. 



The chipmunk is provident; he is a wise house- 

 keeper, but one can hardly envy him those three or 

 four months of inaction in the pitchy darkness of 

 his subterranean den. His mate is not with him, and 

 evidently the oblivion of the hibernating sleep, like 

 that of the woodchuck and of certain mice, is not 

 his. The life of the red and gray squirrels, who are 

 more or less active all winter, seems preferable. 

 They lay up no stores and are.no doubt often cold 

 and hungry, but the light of day and the freedom 

 of the snow and of the tree-tops are theirs. Abun- 

 dant stores are a good thing for both man and beast, 

 but action, adventure, struggle are better. 



