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mammalia. 
once commences to establish a home. The diversity of taste 
exercised in this selection is hardly outdone by our own idio- 
syncrasies in the same field. 
Some evince a love for home and take up their abodes in the 
very door-yards of their parents ; while others, impelled by a desire 
to see more of the world, wander far and wide before settling down 
to the sober task of excavating their holes. Some, indeed, never 
give themselves this trouble, but merely take possession of the de- 
serted burrows of their ancestors, where a small amount of labor 
is all that is necessary to render the easily acquired, though some- 
what musty apartments habitable. Woodchucks’ holes are not all 
alike. There are two principal types : the first slopes at a mod- 
erate angle from the surface and has a mound of dirt near its 
entrance ; * the other is more or less vertical for several feet 
(often a metre or more) immediately below the surface, and no 
loose earth can be found in its neighborhood. The latter are usu- 
ally smaller than the others and several are often clustered about 
one of the large family burrows, though they are occasionally 
isolated. If the surface opening is in a meadow, the hole through 
the sod is apt to be sharp cut and more or less circular in outline. 
Intermediate forms are sometimes met with, and many of these 
are in time converted into primary burrows. 
The galleries do not conform to any definite or uniform pattern, 
but vary in length, depth, and direction, and in the number of 
branches, nests, and surface openings, according to the location, 
character of soil, number of inhabitants, and individual idiosyncrasy. 
However, they resemble one another sufficiently in some respects 
to admit of general description. As a rule they slant abruptly 
downward from the entrance to a depth of from three to four feet 
(.914 to 1.2 19 metres), whence, inclining slightly upward and 
usually curving to one side, they extend horizontally for a varying 
* The mounds in front of the large holes frequently, if not generally, contain accumulations of 
the animal’s excrement, and in one case I removed fully half a bushel from a single mound. 
