attends to business, too. If he is hungry, he will sit up and show you how to crack and eat a nut. Then he will carry away what you give him, one nut at a time, and bury each, lightly, in a separate place. He will come back for them, by and by, and carry them into his high pantry in a tree.
On a snowy morning his foot-prints will guide you to his elevator door, the foot of a tree. Sometimes he uses a hole for a den, but often a crow's nest hammock, roofed over with leaves and bark. He cares neither for cold nor wind. His nest blown down by a gale, he catches on a limb like an acrobat, or drops on his feet like a cat. After eating he washes his face like a cat.
For the underground burrows of the chipmunks, look in the deepest woods, around old stumps, logs and boulders. Look sharp. Tail and all the chipmunk is less than a foot long, and he is just the color of rotten wood. Even the black and white stripes on his back are mere lights and shadows. A sunny, woodsy streak, he flashes across the open, stops stock still, upright, alert, and is gone. You are not sure you saw him at all. Perhaps you heard his gleeful "chip, chip, chip!" It is a challenge. He would just as soon lead you a merry chase as not. Little soldier, every log is a breastwork, every stump a sentry box, every screen of undergrowth a retreat. And for all he burrows, he is not a true ground squirrel. He can climb, and his habits are those of the tree squirrels.
With a last saucy "chip!" he is gone. Find his house-door, if you can. He hides the little round hole cleverly among drifted leaves, shaded by ferns and moss. You will find his snug den below frost-line, leaf-bedded and stored with acorns, nuts, and red winter berries. But you will not find the owner at home. He has another house or two just like it, and his bright eyes may be watching you a few yards away.
No country in the Old World has so many true ground squirrels as we have. Prairie dogs, gophers and woodchucks are ground squirrels. The gopher is the ill-tempered, rat-like hermit of the garden. You may be sure he is under a flower or vegetable bed, biting off roots, if plant tops suddenly wither. But be careful in digging him out. He cannot be tamed, and he bites with his chisel teeth. The prairie dog is found only on the wide plains of the West. To try to dig a village of these amusing little yappers out is like starting to dig a well. In the park zoo the prairie dog village is in a deep cement-lined pit filled with earth, so these clever little animals cannot tunnel and spread over the park.
