UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
they remain unfrozen all winter. Our beech-woods 
to-day, when there is a crop of nuts, fairly swarm 
with chipmunks, and all of them have holes, but 
rarely is there any sign of freshly dug earth. 
None of our wild creatures have as yet become 
much modified, either in form or color, as a result of 
the change in their environment by the disappear- 
ance of the forests. They have changed in habits, 
but the habits have not as yet set their stamp upon 
the organism. Is it not probable that if the chip- 
munk goes on scooping and packing soil with his 
nose for long ages, his anatomy will in time become 
better adapted to this new use? 
I fancy that in time the woodchuck, which from a 
wood-dweller has now so commonly become a den- 
izen of the fields, will change in color, at least. How 
his form now stands out on the smooth surface of 
the green fields! His enemies can see him from afar. 
Is this the reason that while feeding he momentar- 
ily rises up on his hind legs and takes an observa- 
tion? He is instinctively uneasy under his give-away 
color. As a wood-dweller his colors were assimi- 
lative and therefore protective, but now they ad- 
vertise him to every enemy in the landscape. In the 
course of ages he should become a much lighter 
brown or gray — that is, if our theories as to assimi- 
lative coloration are well founded. But there is no 
doubt but that use and wont as well as environment do 
in time leave their stamp upon every living creature. 
