UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
of a fox; I offered her my lunch and, holding her, 
even put it in her mouth, but she threw it disdain- 
fully from her, and rushed on along that steaming 
trail. She had but one thought or sense at that mo- 
ment: she was beside herself about that fox, and 
her attention could not be diverted from it. My 
chipmunk when at work was alike obsessed; he 
knew nothing but his work and the danger from his 
enemies. 
Day by day the mound of fresh earth grew and 
spread back more and more toward the hole out of 
which it came, till it seemed about to cover it. At 
times the squirrel either worked at night or else very 
early in the morning before I was on the scene. But 
later he was not on his job till past mid-forenoon. 
For two or three days he promptly appeared at 
eleven o’clock. He would come leaping over the 
grass from some point behind my camp and quickly 
resume his excavating. Once he found some fresh 
peach-pits upon his mound; these arrested his at- 
tention; he seized them one by one, nibbled off the 
bits of pulp that were still clinging to them, then 
dropped them and took up his task. He usually 
knocked off work by or before two in the afternoon. 
Evidently he has no partner and will spend the 
winter in his subterranean retreat alone. I think 
this is an established chipmunk custom, rendered 
necessary, it may be, by the scant supply of air in 
such close quarters, three feet underground, and 
32 
