UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



No doubt the chipmunk has many narrow es- 

 capes from hawks. A hunter told me recently of a 

 hawk-and-chipmunk incident that he had witnessed 

 the day before in the woods on the mountain. He 

 was standing . still listening to the baying of his 

 hound on the trail of a fox. Suddenly there was a 

 rush and clatter of wings in the maple-trees near 

 him, and he saw a large hawk in pursuit of a chip- 

 munk coming down, close to the trunk of a tree, like 

 a thunderbolt. As the hawk struck the ground, the 

 hunter shot him dead. He had the squirrel in his 

 claw as in a trap, and the hunter had to pry the 

 talon open to free the victim, which was alive and 

 able to run away. From the description I guessed 

 the hawk to be a goshawk. What the chipmunk was 

 doing up that tree is a mystery to me, since he sel- 

 dom ventures far from the groxmd; but the truth of 

 the incident is unquestioned. 



When the chipmunk is in the open, the sense of 

 danger is never absent from him. He is always on 

 the alert. In his excursions along the fences to col- 

 lect wild buckwheat, wild cherries, and various 

 grains, he is watchfulness itself. In every trip to his 

 den with his supplies, his manner is hke that of the 

 baseball-player in running the bases — he makes a 

 dash from my study, leaping high over the grass and 

 weeds, to an apple-tree ten yards away; here he 

 pauses a few seconds and nervously surveys his 

 course ahead; then he makes another sprint to a 

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