232 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



him in water ; by December it is like a door mat, but 

 not quite so coarse. He sheds his coat gradually 

 twice a year, in June and September, and it changes 

 in color from red-brown in summer 



Lycopodiuni obscurum. 



Lycopodium clavatum. 



to gray in winter. For food he has young twigs — 

 those of the black birch he especially relishes — the 

 foliage of the arbor vitse {Thuja occidentalis)* hem- 

 digging through the snow witli his 



lock, and fir 



* The margins of some of the Adirondack lakes are thickly 

 overhung with the branches of the arbor vitse ; these are often 

 stripped off for a distance of five feet up the trunks of the trees, 

 the result of the feeding of deer which have wintered in the vi- 

 cinity. 



