158 PEPACTON 



chuck, or a weasel, or a mouse ? Has not the mouse 

 yet learned that it could get in its hole sooner if 

 it had no tail ? The mole and the meadow mouse 

 have very short tails. Kats, no doubt, put their 

 tails to various uses. The rabbit has no use for a 

 tail, — it would be in its way ; while its manner of 

 sleeping is such that it does not need a tail to tuck 

 itself ■ up with, as do the coon and the fox. The 

 dog talks with his tail; the tail of the possum is 

 prehensile; the porcupine uses his tail in climbing 

 and for defense; the beaver as a tool or trowel; 

 while the tail of the skunk serves as a screen behind 

 which it masks its terrible battery. 



THE WOODCHUCK 



Writers upon rural England and her familiar 

 natural history make no mention of the marmot or 

 woodchuck. In Europe this animal seems to be 

 confined to the high mountainous districts, as on 

 our Pacific slope, burrowing near the snow line. It 

 is more social or gregarious than the American spe- 

 cies, living in large families like our prairie dog. 

 In the Middle and Eastern States our woodchuck 

 takes the place, in some respects, of the English 

 rabbit, burrowing in every hillside and under every 

 stone wall and jutting ledge and large bowlder, from 

 whence it makes raids upon the grass and clover 

 and sometimes upon the garden vegetables. It is 

 quite solitary in its habits, seldom more than one 

 inhabiting the same den, unless it be a mother and 

 her young. It is not now so much a woodchuck 



