THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
Billie Chuck. 
BY DR. J. B. PARDOF., BOUND BROOK, NEW JERSEY. 
Miss Emma Vandervort of Bound 
Brook. New Jersey, had many pets, but 
the most interesting of them all was 
Big Billie Woodchuck. 
\\ hen a little fellow, about the size 
of a small kitten, Billie was taken, with 
his brothers and sisters, from his un- 
derground home dug by the mother in 
a bank along the Raritan River. His 
sisters and brothers all died young, 
probably from the loss of their mother, 
but Billie survived in spite of many a 
fight with stray dogs and cats. The 
cats were all afraid of him and would 
scurry up a tree with their tails twice 
BILLY EATING THE CRUST FROM A SLICE 07 
BREAD. 
their usual size. A stray dog was 
driven from the yard with his tail be- 
tween his legs, calling “Ki yie, ki yie.” 
Sometimes when there was more 
than one dog and things were getting 
too hot for Billie, he would retreat to 
his fortress, a hole which he had dug 
well back under the porch, and all the 
dogs in town could not drive him out. 
Elis mistress would drive the dogs 
away, and call, “Billie.’’ He would come 
running from the underground hole, 
jump in her la]) and look up at her 
gently chattering as much as to say, 
“They could not get me, could they?” 
Billie grew to be very strong. One 
of his feats of strength was to roll a 
stone of forty pounds in weight from 
the top of a box in which he was often 
put to keep him out of mischief. Stand- 
ing up on his hind legs, he would push 
with his shoulders against the board 
on the top of the box, and the stone 
would roll off and out he would go. 
He had a fine appetite, and may well 
be nicknamed ground hog. At first he 
ate only vegetables but later he devel- 
oped a sweet tooth, being very fond 
of chocolate candy and cake. In eating 
a loaf of bread, he would first eat the 
crust off by turning the loaf over and 
over in his front paws. The balance of 
the loaf he would not eat unless it was 
soaked in cocoa. 
When Emma went to the store for 
her mother, Billy would meet her at 
the gate and beg for candy. Sometimes 
he tried to climb up on her shoulder. 
When mother got supper, he would fol- 
low her around the kitchen on his hind 
legs, begging. Emma’s favorite stunt 
to show off Billie was to dress him in 
doll’s clothes, and have a parade on the 
front lawn. 
At the approach of winter, Billie 
gathered a lot of straw and made his 
nest in the cellar. Here he slept like 
dead until springtime, not even waking 
up when tickled, and he did not like to 
be tickled. 
He died at the age of three years 
from some unknown disease. All avail- 
able medical aid did no good. 
More about Tame Pigeons Alighting 
in Trees. 
BY R. W. SHUFELDT, WASHINGTON. D. C. 
Since contributing the notes I did 
on the above subject to the July issue 
of The Guide to Nature of this year 
(p. 25), it has occurred to me that about 
a year ago last winter, while photo- 
graphing in the National Zoological 
Park at Washington, I saw some thirty 
or forty tame pigeons there fly up and 
alight in a tree — a maple, I believe — 
which was entirely devoid of foliage, as 
it happened to be in the wintertime. 
The tree in question was in the view I 
was photographing, and the birds may 
be seen on the negative — small as they 
are. 
Upon recalling this incident. I com- 
