UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
maybe under three or more feet of snow in addition. 
At any rate, the chipmunk, male or female, is a 
hermit, and there is no codperation or true sociabil- 
ity among them. They are wonderfully provident 
and industrious, beginning to store up their winter 
food in midsummer, or as early as the farmer does 
his. When the nut-crop fails them, as it has this 
present season, they scour about the neighborhood, 
gathering all sorts of wild seeds and grains, and 
wild-cherry pits, working almost as steadily as do 
the ants and the bees. In the mean time they feed on 
insects and berries and various green things, but 
only cured grains and nuts go into their winter 
stores. 
The wild creatures rarely make an economic 
blunder. We are told on excellent authority that 
the coney, or least hare, in the Rocky Mountains 
spreads its newly cut grass and other green food on 
the rocks in the sun, and dries it as carefully as the 
farmer dries his hay before storing it up for winter 
use. I think we are safe in saying that it is not the 
coney’s individual wisdom or experience that 
prompts him to do this, but the wisdom of some- 
thing much older than he is. It is the wisdom of 
nature, inherent and active as instinct. 
One day, when I paused before my little neigh- 
bor’s mound of earth, I saw that the hole was 
nearly stopped up, and, while I was looking, the 
closure was completed from within. Loose earth 
33 
