<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></SPAN>CHAPTER VII</h2>
<p class="center">(JULY)</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Well said, old mole! Canst work i' the earth so fast?<br/></span>
<p class="right">—<i>Shakespere</i>: "<i>Hamlet.</i>"<br/></p>
</div>
</div>
<h3>FARMERS WITH FOUR FEET</h3>
<p>Before we start this chapter—it's going to be about
the farmers with four feet, you see—I want to say something,
and that's this: <i>Don't let anybody tell you moles eat
roots.</i> They don't! They eat the cutworms that do eat
the roots. Haven't I been in mole runs often enough to
know! Of course, the moles do cut a root here and there
occasionally when it happens to be in the way, as they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</SPAN></span>
tunnel along, but what does that amount to?</p>
<p>Why, in France they put Mr. Mole in vineyards—on
purpose! He's one of the regular hands about the place,
just like the hired man.</p>
<h4><span class="smcap"><SPAN name="I._MR._MOLE_AND_HIS_RELATIONS" id="I._MR._MOLE_AND_HIS_RELATIONS">I. Mr. Mole and His Relations</SPAN></span></h4>
<p>Moles do a lot of good work for the farmer. Not only
were they ploughing and ploughing and ploughing the
soil—over and over again—thousands of centuries before
man came along to plant seed in it, but they are all the
time eating, among other things, destructive worms and
insects in the soil. They work all over the world, that is
to say, in the upper half of it—the Northern Hemisphere;
and there's where the biggest half of the land is, if I haven't
forgotten my geography.</p>
<h5><SPAN name="WONDERFUL_LITTLE_MACHINES_ON_FOUR_LEGS" id="WONDERFUL_LITTLE_MACHINES_ON_FOUR_LEGS"></SPAN>WONDERFUL LITTLE MACHINES ON FOUR LEGS</h5>
<p>Closely related to the moles are the shrews—quaint
little mouse-like creatures with long, pointed heads and
noses that they can twist about almost any way in hunting
their meals and finding out other things in this big
world that concern them. On these funny, long noses
they have whiskers like a pussy-cat; and that helps, too,
when you want to keep posted on what's going on around
you. Like the moles the shrews are found all over the
Northern Hemisphere. What is known as the "long-tailed
shrew," is the very smallest of our relations among the
mammalia. Why, they're no bigger than the end of a
man's little finger; and the smallest watch <i>I</i> ever heard
of was a good deal bigger than that. Yet, inside these wee<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</SPAN></span>
bodies is as much machinery as it takes to run any other
mammal—an elephant, say.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei128" name="imagei128"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i128.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE COMMON AND THE SHORT-TAILED SHREW</p> </div>
</div>
<p>The shrews get around very fast, considering their size;
and they're on the go all the time. I never saw such busy-bodies;
nosing about in the old leaves and dead grass and
under logs and boring into loose loam, punky wood, decayed
stumps—anywhere you'd be likely to find a worm,
a grub, a beetle, or a slug. Hard workers, these shrews,
but <i>so</i> quarrelsome! When two Mr. Shrews meet there's
pretty sure to be trouble. They're regular little swashbucklers
among themselves; and—the queerest thing,
until you know why—they don't seem to be afraid even
of cats. Fancy telling Cousin Mouse that! But it isn't
because the shrews <i>wouldn't</i> be afraid if the cats got after
them, but because cats always let shrews alone. They
don't taste good!</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei129" name="imagei129"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i129.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE CILIATED SHREW</p> </div>
</div>
<p>Shrews are so nimble on their tiny feet and so quick of
hearing, they are very hard to catch. And please don't
try! You simply <i>can't</i> tame them, and in spite of the fact<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</SPAN></span>
they're so fierce and bold at home—among their own kind—they're
easily frightened to death. A shock of fear and
that wonderful little heart engine of theirs stops short—never
to go again.</p>
<h5><SPAN name="MR_MOLES_PAWS_AND_HOW_HE_WORKS_THEM" id="MR_MOLES_PAWS_AND_HOW_HE_WORKS_THEM">MR. MOLE'S PAWS AND HOW HE WORKS THEM</SPAN></h5>
<p>But while the shrews can get around so much faster
above ground the moles are the most remarkable travellers
<i>under</i> ground. The mole's paws, you notice, are turned
outward, as one's hands are when swimming. In fact he
does almost swim through the soft, loose soil—so fast
does he move along! His two shovels, with the muscles
that work them, weigh as much as all the rest of his body.
Why, he has a chest like an athlete! He pierces the soil
with his muzzle and then clears it away with his paws.
His skull is shaped like a wedge. He has a strong, boring
snout and a smooth, round body.</p>
<p>This snout, by the way, has a bone near the tip. You
see how handy that would come in, don't you? At the
same time, although it's so hard—this snout of his—it's
very sensitive, like the fingers of the blind; for Mr. Mole<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</SPAN></span>
must always be feeling his way along in the dark, you
know.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei130" name="imagei130"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i130.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">SECTION OF MR. MOLE'S CASTLE</p> <p class="ctext">This is a cross-section of a mole-hill, showing the central chamber and the rooms leading into it.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The kind of moles you find in Europe live in what seem
to be little earthen fortresses, and the tops, sticking above
ground, make hillocks. In each of these little forts there
is a central chamber; then outside of this, running all the
way around, are two galleries, one above the other. The
upper gallery has several openings into the central chamber.
The galleries are connected by two straight up-and-down
shafts. From the lower galleries several passages,
usually from eight to ten, lead away to where the moles go
out to feed; and if there is a body of water near by—a pond
or a creek, say—there's a special tunnel leading to that.</p>
<p>Mr. Mole works hard and he sleeps hard. The big middle
room in his home is the bedchamber of Mr. Mole and
his family. Usually he sleeps soundly all night, but occasionally,
on fine Summer nights, he comes out and enjoys
the air.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei131" name="imagei131"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i131.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE COMMON AND THE STAR-NOSED MOLE</p> </div>
</div>
<p>You'd think he'd get awfully dirty, wouldn't you,
boring his way along in the ground all the time? But he
doesn't. His hair is always as spick and span as if he'd
just come out of the barber-shop. Do you know why?
It's because he wears his hair pompadoured. It grows
straight out from the skin. So you see he can go backward
and forward—as he is obliged to do constantly in
the day's work—without mussing it up at all. If it lay<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</SPAN></span>
down, like yours or like pussy-cat's, it would get into an
<i>awful</i> mess! In France the children call Mr. Mole "The
Little Gentleman in the Velvet Coat."</p>
<h4><span class="smcap"><SPAN name="II_Four-Footed_Farmers_That_Wear_Armor" id="II_Four-Footed_Farmers_That_Wear_Armor"></SPAN>II. Four-Footed Farmers That Wear Armor</span></h4>
<p>But, speaking of coats, I want to introduce you to a
still more rapid worker in the soil, who wears a coat of mail.
He is called the armadillo. There used to be a species of
armadillo in western Texas. Whether there are any there
still I don't know,<SPAN name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</SPAN> but go on down to South America and
you'll find all you want. The woods are full of them, and
so are those vast prairies—the pampas. The plates in
the armadillo's coat of mail are not made of steel, of course,
but of bone. These bony plates are each separate from
the other on most of his body but made into solid bucklers
over the shoulders and the hips. The armadillos have
very short, stout legs and very long, strong claws, and
how they can dig! They can dig fast in any kind of soil,
but in the loose soil of the pampas they dig so fast that if
you happen to catch sight of one when out riding and he
sees <i>you</i>, you'll have to start toward him with your horse
on the run if you want to see anything more of him. Before
you can get to him and throw yourself from the saddle,
he'll have buried himself in the ground. And you
can't catch him; not even if you have a spade and dig
away with all your might. He'll dig ahead of you, faster—a
good deal faster—than you can follow.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</SPAN></span></p>
<h5><SPAN name="MR_ARMADILLOS_REMARKABLE_NOSE_DRILL" id="MR_ARMADILLOS_REMARKABLE_NOSE_DRILL">MR. ARMADILLO'S REMARKABLE NOSE DRILL</SPAN></h5>
<p>For all he looks so knightly, so far as his armor is concerned,
the armadillo is timid, peaceful, and never looking
for trouble with anybody, but once aroused fights fiercely
and does much damage with his long hooked claws. His
chief diet is ants. These he finds with his nose. He locates
them by scent and then bores in after them. You'd think
he'd twist it off, that long nose of his; he turns it first one
way and then the other, like a gimlet. And so fast!</p>
<p>The armadillo dislikes snakes as much as all true knights
disliked dragons. That is, he doesn't like them socially;
although he's quite fond of them as a variation in diet.
He'll leap on a snake, paying not the slightest attention to
his attempts to bite through that coat of mail, and tear
him into bits and eat him.</p>
<p>Another armored knight that eats snakes and that other
animals seldom eat—much as they'd like to—is the hedgehog.
If you were a fox, instead of a boy or girl, I wouldn't
have to tell you about how hard it is to serve hedgehog
at the family table. One of the earliest things a little fox
learns in countries where there are hedgehogs is to let the
hedgehog alone.</p>
<p>"Hedgehogs would be very nice—to eat, I mean—if they
weren't so ugly about not wanting to be eaten."</p>
<p>We can imagine Mamma Fox saying that to the children.
Then she goes on:</p>
<p>"The whole ten inches of a hedgehog—he's about that
long—are covered with short, stiff, sharp, gray spines.
He's easy to catch—just ambles along, hardly lifting his
short legs from the ground. And he goes about at night—just
when we foxes are out marketing. That would be so<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</SPAN></span>
handy, don't you see; but the trouble is about those nasty
spines of his. Try to catch him and he rolls up into a ball
with all his spines—they're sharp as needles—sticking out
everywhere, and every which way. And—well, you simply
can't get at him, that's all. So just don't have anything
to do with him. It's only a waste of time."</p>
<p>Hedgehogs live in hedges and thickets and in narrow
gulches covered with bushes. They do their share of
ploughing when nosing about with their pig-like snouts for
slugs, snails, and insects, and when they dig places for
their home nests. These homes they line with moss,
grass, and leaves, and in them spend the long Winter, indifferent
to the tempests and the cold.</p>
<p>But there's another place to look for hedgehogs, and you
never would guess! In people's kitchens. If you ever go
to England you'll find them in many country homes, helping
with the work. They're great on cockroaches, and
they're perfectly safe from the cat and the dog. Both
Puss and Towser know all about those spines, just as well
as Mrs. Fox does.</p>
<p>When they've eaten all the cockroaches, give them some
cooked vegetables, porridge, or bread and milk, and they'll
be perfectly content. They're easy to tame and get very
friendly.</p>
<p>In the wild state, besides the insects and things I mentioned,
they eat snakes; and poison snakes, too! The
poison never seems to bother them at all. Their table
manners are interesting, also, when it comes to eating
snakes. They always begin at the tail.<SPAN name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</SPAN> They'd no more
think of eating a snake any other way than one would of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</SPAN></span>
picking up the wrong fork at a formal dinner.</p>
<h5>UNDER THE HEDGEHOG'S WATER-PROOF ROOF</h5>
<p>That's one of the things about good manners Mamma
Hedgehog teaches the babies, I suppose. Of these she has
from two to four, and she makes a curious nest especially<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</SPAN></span>
for them; a nest with a roof on it that sheds rain like any
other roof. Just as it is with puppies and kittens, the
babies are born blind; and not only that, but they can't
hear at first, either. While they are young their spines—I
don't mean their back-bones, but their other spines—are
soft, but they become hard as the babies grow and open
their eyes and ears on the world. The muscles on their
backs get very thick and strong, so that when they don't
want to have anything to do with anybody—say a fox, or
a dog, or a weasel—they just pull the proper muscle
strings and tie themselves up into a kind of bag made of
their own needle-cushion skins, with the needles all sticking
out, point up!</p>
<h4><span class="smcap"><SPAN name="III_A_Visit_to_Some_Farm_Villages" id="III_A_Visit_to_Some_Farm_Villages"></SPAN>III. A Visit to Some Farm Villages</span></h4>
<h5>TWELVE LITTLE MARMOTS ALL IN ONE BED</h5>
<p>Next I'd like you to visit with me certain other farmers
who remind us of the Middle Ages also; not because they
wear armor, like the armadillos and the hedgehogs and the
lords of castles, but because they live in farm villages as
the farmer peasants used to do around the castles of the
lords. Moreover, one reason they live together in this way
is for protection—just as it was with the peasants—only
among these little democrats there's no overlord business;
each one's home is his castle. Another reason for this village
arrangement is that it's such a sociable way to live;
and they're great society people, these farm villagers. The
marmots, for example, the largest and heaviest of the
squirrel family, just love company. In their mountain
country—they're mountain people, the marmots—they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</SPAN></span>
play together, work together, and during the long, cold
night of Winter snuggle together in their burrows. Their
burrows are close by each other among the rocks. They
have both Summer and Winter residences. In Summer
they go away up in the mountains, hollow out their burrows
and raise their babies. When the snows of late
Autumn send them down the mountainsides, twelve or
fifteen of them, all working together, pitch in and make
a tunnel in the soil among the rocks, enlarging it at the
end into a big room. Next they put in a good pile of dry
hay, carefully close the front door and lock it up with
stones caulked with grass and moss. Then they all cuddle
down together, as snug as you please, and stay there until
Spring.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei135" name="imagei135"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i135.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">HIGHWAYS OF GROUND-SQUIRREL TOWN</p> <p class="ctext">Almost as crooked as the streets of London town, aren't they? And as hard to find one's way about in—unless, of course, one were a ground-squirrel. This is the burrow of a Richardson
ground-squirrel sketched by Thompson Seton, near Whitewater, Manitoba.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Another member of the marmot family who is very fond
of good company is the prairie-dog. There may be thousands
in a prairie-dog town. Each little prairie-dog home
has in front of it a mound something like an Eskimo's hut.
The prairie-dogs make these mounds in digging out their
burrows. They pile the dirt right at the front door. This
may not look neat to us, but you'll see it's just the thing—this
dirt pile—when you know what the prairie-dog does
with it. He uses it as a watch-tower.</p>
<p>When, from this watch-tower, he spies certain people he
doesn't want to meet, you ought to see how quickly he can
make for his front door and into the house! The times are
still lawless where the prairie-dog lives, and he has to be
on the lookout all the while for coyotes, for foxes, for
badgers, for the black-footed ferret and the old gray wolf;
to say nothing of hawks and brown owls.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</SPAN></span></p>
<h5><SPAN name="SUCH_NEAT_CHAMBERMAIDS" id="SUCH_NEAT_CHAMBERMAIDS"></SPAN>SUCH NEAT CHAMBERMAIDS!</h5>
<p>The prairie-dogs like sandy or gravelly soil for their
homes, and in making them they do a lot of ploughing.
And besides they supply this same soil with a great deal of
humus—the grass that they use for bedding. They're very
particular about changing their beds every day; always
clearing out the old bedding and putting in new. They do
this along about sundown. You can see them do it right
in New York City, for there is a flourishing colony of them
at the zoo.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei138" name="imagei138"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i138.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THIS MUST BE A PLEASANT DAY</p> <p class="ctext">In nice weather the Prairie Dog's front door stands wide open like this, but before a rain he stuffs it tight with grass because, when it <i>does</i> rain in the arid regions where he lives, it
comes down in bucketfuls!</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Mr. Prairie-Dog is about a foot long and as fat as butter.
The reason he's called a dog isn't because he is a dog or
even looks like one, but because he has a sharp little bark
like a very much excited puppy. He thinks he sees something
suspicious: "Yap! Yap!"</p>
<p>Or he spies a neighbor down the street: "Yap! Yap!<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</SPAN></span>
Hello, neighbor! Looks like another fine day, doesn't it?"</p>
<p>"Yap! Yap!" says neighbor. (This "yap" passes for
"yes," no doubt—although it isn't quite the way Mr.
Webster would say it, perhaps.)</p>
<p>Then maybe a neighbor from away over on the avenue,
that he hasn't seen for some time, comes calling—as they're
always doing, these neighborly little chaps. Then it's:</p>
<p>"Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Why, how <i>are</i> you? And
what have you been doing? And how are the little folks?"</p>
<p>And so it goes, all day long.</p>
<p>The prairie-dog's native home is on our Western plains,
but he has a cousin away off in South America—although
he may never have heard of him—called the viscacha.</p>
<p>The viscachas live on the great grassy plains of the La
Plata in colonies of twenty or more, in villages of deep-chambered
burrows with large pit-like entrances grouped
close together; so close, in fact, that the whole village makes
one large irregular mound, thirty to forty feet in diameter
and two to three feet high. These villages being on the
level prairie, the viscachas are careful to build them high
enough so that floods will not reach them. They make a
clear space all around the town. In doing this these little
people seem to have two purposes: (1) To make it more
difficult for enemies to slip up on them unnoticed, and
(2) to furnish a kind of athletic field for the community;
for it is in these open spaces that they have their foot-races,
wrestling matches, and the like.</p>
<p>If you ever happen down their way, the first thing that
will strike you is the enormous size of the entrances to the
central burrows. You'd think somebody as big as a bear
lived in them. The entrance is four to six feet across and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</SPAN></span>
deep enough for a tall man to stand in up to the waist.</p>
<p>Like our prairie-dogs, the viscachas are very sociable,
and little paths, the result of neighborly calls, lead from
one village to another. They are neighborly indeed; and
in the Bible sense. Of course, they like to get together of
an evening and talk things over and gossip and all that,
but that isn't the end of it. To take an instance: These
South American prairie-dogs, like our prairie-dogs up
North, are not popular with the cattlemen; and the cattlemen,
to get rid of them, bury whole villages with earth.
Then neighbors from distant burrows come—just as soon
as the cattlemen go away—and dig them out!</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei141" name="imagei141"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i141.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">MR. P. GOPHER AS THE MASTER PLOUGHMAN</p> <p class="ctext">Thompson Seton calls the pocket-gopher "the master ploughman of the West," and this is how he illustrates the extent of his labors.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Another ploughman besides the prairie-dog and the
viscacha, who isn't popular with farmers—although
Thompson Seton calls him "The Master Ploughman of
the West"—is the pocket-gopher. He has farmed it from
Canada to Texas, all through the fertile Mississippi Valley.
The reason he has that queer expression on his face—you
couldn't help noticing it—is that each cheek has a big outside
pocket in it; and, like the big pockets in a small boy's
trousers, they're there for business. On each forefoot he
has a set of long claws; and dig, you should see him! He's
a regular little steam-shovel. He sinks his burrow below
the frost-line and into this, stuffed in his two pockets, he
carries food to eat when he wakes up during the following
Spring, before earth's harvests are ripe.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei142" name="imagei142"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i142.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">POCKETS OF THE POCKET-MOUSE</p> </div>
</div>
<h4><span class="smcap"><SPAN name="IV._THE_HOME_OF_THE_RED_FOX" id="IV._THE_HOME_OF_THE_RED_FOX">IV. The Home of the Red Fox</SPAN></span></h4>
<p>Another country gentleman, not as popular with his
neighbors, I must say, as he might be, but whose people,
in the course of the ages, have done a good deal of ploughing,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</SPAN></span>
is Brer Fox. I mean particularly the red fox, for the
gray fox usually lives in hollow trees or in ready-made
houses among the rocks of the mountainside.</p>
<h5>THE THREE ROOMS IN THE FOX HOUSE</h5>
<p>The red fox is the cunningest of his tribe. One of the
ways he shows his cunning—and also his lack of conscience,
in dealings outside the fox family—is in his way of getting
a home. Whenever he can find a burrow of a badger, for
example, he drives the badger out and then enlarges the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</SPAN></span>
place to suit his own needs. For Mr. Fox's residence is
quite an affair. Usually it has three rooms; the front
room where either Mr. or Mrs. Fox—depending on which
is going marketing—stops and looks about to see if the
coast is clear; back of that the storeroom for food, and
behind this the family bedroom and nursery.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Fox are among
the thriftiest folks I know.
They not only provide for to-day,
but for to-morrow and
the day after. For example,
when Mr. Fox visits a poultry-yard,
he doesn't simply carry
off enough for one meal. He
keeps catching and carrying
off chickens, ducks, or geese—whatever
comes handy—all
night; working clear up to
daybreak. And the fresh meat
he thus gets for the family
table he buries—each fowl in a separate place—not so very
far away from the poultry-yard. Then later he comes and
gets this buried treasure and takes it home to be shared
with mother and the babies.</p>
<p>Of these babies there are from three to five. Young
foxes are very playful and think there's no such sport as
chasing each other about in the sunshine, while mother
sits in the doorway keeping an eye out for possible danger
and watching their antics with a complacent smile, as much
as to say: "<i>Aren't</i> they the little dears!"</p>
<p>If just one little fox wants to play while his brothers<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</SPAN></span>
and sisters want to sleep—and that sometimes happens—he
goes off by himself and chases his own tail around, just
like a kitten.</p>
<p>Little foxes are very nice and polite that way.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei143" name="imagei143"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i143.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE KANGAROO RAT AND THE POCKET-MOUSE</p> <p class="ctext">The kangaroo rat and the pocket-mouse live in the arid regions of the United States. Both have pockets in their cheeks, but the mouse is named for his pockets and the rat for his long
kangaroo hind legs.</p>
</div>
</div>
<h4>V. <span class="smcap"><SPAN name="Work_and_Play_in_Chipmunkville" id="Work_and_Play_in_Chipmunkville">
Work and Play in Chipmunkville</SPAN></span></h4>
<p>It isn't often one gets a chance to see little foxes at play,
except occasionally in the big city zoos, for foxes are now
so scarce; and, besides, their papas and mammas in the
wild state are suspicious of human spectators, but there
are certain nimble four-legged babies to be found all over<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</SPAN></span>
the country that play in much the same way.</p>
<p>If, along in July, you should see a certain little body in
a lovely striped suit chasing another little body in a
striped suit, exactly like it, along the old rail fence or
over the boulder wall or across the meadow, ten to one,
it will be two baby chipmunks playing tag. When one
bites the other's tail—they're always trying to do that in
these tag games—it means he's "it," I think. In fact, I'm
quite sure, for always, when one little Mr. Chipmunk bites
another little Mr. Chipmunk on the tail, little Mr. Chipmunk
No. 2 turns right around and chases little Mr. Chipmunk
No. 1, and tries to bite <i>his</i> tail.</p>
<p>They keep this up on sunshiny days all through July and
along into early August. Then the serious business of life
begins. They sober down, these chipmunk children—they
were only born last May—and learn to make homes for
themselves. You never would think the way they love
the sunshine that the homes of all the chipmunks are under
the ground, and as dark as can be. But they are. You
notice the chipmunks have rather large feet, considering
what dainty little creatures they are. These feet, like the
feet of the mole, are for digging. The chipmunk digs deep
under the roots of trees and stone walls, if there happens
to be either handy by, but, so far as I've seen, he's quite
contented to make his burrows in the open meadows. The
round nest at the end of the burrow is lined with fine grass.
It has two entrances, one right opposite the other, like
front and back doors. Sometimes there are as many as
three doors; four, maybe, in case of a chipmunk of a particularly
nervous disposition. All chipmunks are easily
frightened and dive into their holes, quick as a wink, when<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</SPAN></span>
there's any danger; and often when there's really nothing
to be scared at at all.</p>
<h5><SPAN name="WHEN_THOSE_EXTRA_DOORS_COME_HANDY" id="WHEN_THOSE_EXTRA_DOORS_COME_HANDY">WHEN THOSE EXTRA DOORS COME HANDY</SPAN></h5>
<p>But you can't blame them. There are times when it's
no fun being a chipmunk, I tell you. The hawks get after
you, and the minks and the foxes and the weasels. Those
extra doors into the nest are very useful places to dodge
into when you're outside and a savage old hawk swoops
down on you, or a fox makes a jump at you. And they're
just as handy—these extra doors—to run <i>out</i> of when a
mink or a weasel follows you in. They'll do that, if you're
a chipmunk; chase you right into your own house!</p>
<p>When a pair of grown-up chipmunks start housekeeping
for themselves—that is to say when they are about ten
weeks old—they first dig a little tunnel, almost straight
down for several feet. Then they make a hall that runs
along horizontally—like anybody's hall—for a few yards.
Then, supposing you're Mr. or Mrs. Chipmunk in your
new place, after it's all done—you go up a slant—a flight
of stairs, you might say, although, of course, there aren't
any stairs—and there you are in the family bedroom, the
nest.</p>
<p>Not long after the chipmunks stop their outdoor games
in the Fall you might think it was because they had the
mumps; they go around with their faces all swelled out in
such a funny way. The reason is they have their cheeks
full of nuts and seeds that they are storing for the Winter.
They don't put these stores in the nest—for then where
would they sleep, the nest is so small—but in special cellars
that they build near the nest, with connecting passages.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</SPAN></span>
These cellars, like the nests, are well below frost-line, so
that Jack can't get the nuts or nip the noses of the chipmunks
while they are asleep.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="imagei146" name="imagei146"></SPAN><div class="figborder"> <ANTIMG src="images/i146.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">PICTURESQUE HOME OF A CONNECTICUT WOODCHUCK</p> <p class="ctext">This is the truly artistic residence of a Connecticut woodchuck which I found in a rocky knoll by the wayside during a summer vacation at Kent and reproduced as well as I could
with my fountain-pen. Mr. W. as he often does in digging his burrows, had availed himself
of the protection of the roots of a tree. Here there were two projecting roots, forming a
curious arch over the doorway, which was tastily decorated by a little overhanging vine, on
its way up the knoll, along the stones, and up the foot of the tree.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>When Winter finally sets in, the chipmunks get very
drowsy and go up to bed. And there they stay until
Spring—one great long nap, except that they wake up and
stir around occasionally on bright days and if it happens
to warm up a little.</p>
<p>"Such sleepyheads!" you say. "And what about all those
nuts? I should think they'd be fine for Winter parties."</p>
<p>They would, I dare say. But you know a body doesn't
have much of an appetite when he doesn't get any outdoor
exercise, and that's why the chipmunks only take a few
bites now and then, during the Winter. And, besides, if
they ate up everything in the Winter—you know how folks
eat at parties—what would they do in the Spring, with no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</SPAN></span>
good nuts lying around on the ground, as there are in the
Fall; and nothing else to be had that chipmunks care
about? So they keep most of the nuts and seeds and
things for the great Spring breakfast, and all the other
meals, until berries are ripe. The berries they eat until
the next nut harvest comes along.</p>
<p>Until then, you see, they haven't much of anything to
do but play around and sit in the sun and chat. So why
shouldn't they?</p>
<p class="center">HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY</p>
<blockquote><p>You will find some most readable things about foxes in Burrough's
"Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers"; Comstock's "Pet Book";
Cram's "Little Beasts of Field and Wood"; Wright's "Four-Footed
Americans"; Jordan's "Five Tales of Birds and Beasts";
Long's "Ways of Wood Folk";
and Seton's "Wild Animals I Have Known."</p>
<p>Comstock's "Pet Book" also tells about the prairie-dog; and
Seton, in his "Wild Animals I Have Known," tells about "The
Prairie Dog and His Kin."</p>
<p>It's a very common superstition among English country folk that
shrews always drop dead if they attempt to cross a road. How do
you suppose such a strange idea ever got started? Allen, in his
"Nature's Work Shop," reasons it out, and his reasons seem very
plausible. It's a fact that their dead bodies are nearly always
found in roadways. You'll also find some interesting information
about shrews in Johonnott's "Curious Flyers, Creepers and Swimmers"
and Wright's "Four-Footed Americans."</p>
<p>There's some little dispute about squirrels as tree-planters; that
is to say as to just how they do it, for there's no question that they
<i>do</i> plant oaks and other trees. Thoreau, in his "Walden," gives the
squirrel credit for doing an immense amount of tree-planting, but
Ernest Ingersoll, in his article on squirrels in "Wild Neighbors,"
thinks the squirrel leaves comparatively few acorns or hickory-nuts,
and that he doesn't forget where he puts them, as other writers
on nature say. "They seem to know precisely the spot," says Mr.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</SPAN></span>
Ingersoll, "where each nut is buried, and go directly to it; and I
have seen them hundreds of times when the snow was more than a
foot deep, wade floundering through it straight to a certain point,
dive down, perhaps far out of sight, and in a moment emerge with
a nut in their jaws."</p>
<p>But <i>how</i> the squirrel knows it's there—that's the mystery! Read
what Ingersoll says about it. The whole essay is extremely good
reading, and will tell you a number of things to watch out for in
squirrels that you perhaps never have noticed.</p>
<p>In Pliny's "Natural History" you will find, among other quaint
stories, one to the effect that mountain marmots put away hay in
the fall by one animal using itself as a hay-rack—lying on his back
with his load clasped close while he is pulled home by the tail.
"Animal Arts and Crafts" tells what a simple little thing originated
this idea. Many of the peasants of the Alps still believe it.</p>
<p>Hornaday, in his "Two Years in the Jungle," gives an interesting
account of how one of the four-footed knights in armor—the
pangolin—does himself up in a ball, and how next to impossible
it is to "unlock" him.</p>
<p>Ingersoll, in discussing the various uses of tails in "Wild Neighbors,"
tells how a gerboa kangaroo brings home grass for his nest,
done up in a sheaf of which his own little tail is the binder.</p>
<p>An interesting four-footed burrower, when he can't rob a prairie-dog
of his hole—or some other body smaller than himself—is the
coyote. There is a long talk on the coyote and his ways in "Wild
Neighbors." This little book also gives pictures of the different
kinds of shrews in the United States, and a lot of detail about them
and their little paws and their noses and their tails.</p>
<p>It's a queer thing how systematic and prompt shrews and moles
are in business. You can actually set your watch by them, as
you will see in the same book.</p>
<p>In the article on the gopher in the "Americana" you will find
how the gopher got his name. Can you guess, when I tell you it's
from a French word meaning "honeycomb"?</p>
</blockquote>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.