UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
sions, they would have presented a far different 
appearance. That ugly work-hole, with its belit- 
tered dooryard, would have been completely cov- 
ered up, and the real entrance deftly concealed. 
It is highly improbable that every individual 
chipmunk has a way peculiar to himself, as we hu- 
mans so often have. Their dens and modes of pro- 
cedure in digging them are as near alike as two peas, 
or as two chipmunks themselves. Yet there remains 
the mystery of an occasional hole without any pile of 
earth anywhere in sight. I find several such each sea- 
son, and I can offer no plausible explanation of them. 
I have found two weasels’ dens on the margin of 
a muck swamp in the woods that presented the same 
insoluble problem — what had become of the bushel 
or more of earth that must have been brought to the 
surface? Both the weasel and the chipmunk have 
several galleries and one or more large chambers 
or dining-halls, and how each manages to hide or 
obliterate all the loose soil that must have been re- 
moved is a question which has long puzzled me. If 
we had an American Fabre, or a man who would 
give himself up to the study of the life-histories of 
our rodents, with the same patience and enthusiasm 
that the wonderful Frenchman has had for the life- 
histories of the insects, he would doubtless soon 
solve the mystery for me. 
I used to think that the chipmunk carried away 
the soil in his cheek pockets, and have so stated in 
37 
