258 



ZOOLOGY. 



the sweet flag, as well as mussels. In tlie autumn, before 

 tlie shallow lakes and swamps fj'eeze over, it builds its low 

 conical house of mud, the base high enough to raise the 

 interior above the level of the water; tlie entrance being 

 under water. AVhen the ice forms the musk-rat makes 

 breathing lioles through it, and, says Richardson, protects 

 them from the frost by a covering of mud. In severe win- 

 ters these holes fill up and many of the animals die. In the 

 summer it makes long burrows in the banks of streams, 

 with a dry nest at the end. Richardson says that it calls 

 "to its mates by a peculiar shrill whistle. On the ajiproach 



Fig. 296.— The Spalax or Blind-Eat. 



of a man it uttei's a feeble cry, like the squeak of a rabbit 

 when hurt." (Fauna Bor. Amer., i. 227.) 



Of the squirrels the chipmunk (Tamias Aniaticns) inhab- 

 its Northwestern America; it is striped with' five black and 

 four white stripes on the back. It is an active and indns- 

 trious little creature, with its cheek-iwuches full of seeds. 

 iJnring the winter it lives in a luirrow, with several o])enings 

 made at the base of a tree. The chickaree or common red 

 squirrel {Sciurus Hadsonius) may be seen in the dead of 

 winter in pleasant weather; it burrows under trees; it feeds 

 chiefly on nuts and seeds, and m the fur countries subsists 

 chielly on tiie seeds and young buds of the spruce. In New 

 England it eats the seeds in pine cones, letting the scales 



