UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



one of my books, but I am now very certain that he 

 does not — only his food-stores are thus carried. In 

 the present case I measured the excavated earth and 

 found it a plump bushel. 



From the point of view of modern scientific phi- 

 losophy, — namely, that the needs of the organism 

 beget the organ, and a change of use modifies it, — 

 it is interesting to note to what novel use the chip- 

 munk puts his nose in digging his den, apparently 

 without changing or impairing it as an organ of 

 smell. If he has been doing this through biological 

 ages, using it as a kind of scoop and pusher, is it not 

 remarkable that it has not undergone some modifi- 

 cation that would make it better suited for these pur- 

 poses? Note the shovel-footed mole, with his huge, 

 muscular fore paws with which he forces his way 

 through the soil and heaves it up to the surface, or 

 the pig with his nose so well adapted to rooting. 

 The nose of the chipmunk does not perceptibly dif- 

 fer from that of the other squirrels, which do no 

 imderground work. Are we not forced to the con- 

 clusion that the life-habits of the chipmunk have 

 been much changed since the country has been so 

 largely denuded of its forests, thus forcing him to 

 become a dweller in the open? In the primitive 

 woods, with the thick coating of leaves and of snow 

 upon the ground, he would not have needed to pen- 

 etrate the earth so deeply. The wood frogs go barely 

 a few inches under the leaves and leaf-moidd, where 



