Woodchuck

“ Even storing up fruits or roots is too great an effort for the indolent woodchuck, and in his hibernation stupor he draws only upon the fat which his lethargic summer life has accumulated within his skin.
As we might expect from a liver of such a slothful life, the family traits of the woodchuck are far from admirable and there is said to be little affection shown by the mother woodchuck toward her young. The poor little fellows are pushed out of the burrow and driven away to shift for themselves as soon as possible. Many of them must come to grief from hawks and foxes. ”

“ All the glory of the fall, the heyday of the ’coon and the squirrels, the woodchuck misses. No golden October, no Indian summer for him; he has had his day.
Though the woodchuck’s muscles are flabby, his heart is stout. The farm-dog can kill him, but he cannot make him show fear or dismay; he is game to the last. ”

“ Make a sudden noise and he will sit up on his haunches with hanging forefeet, like a begging dog, and then dart into his hole to remain in hiding until it seems safe for him to venture out again.
Woodchuck and His Hole.
The woodchuck is a snub-nosed little animal, a trifle larger than a good-sized rabbit. Its tail is short and bushy and its hair long, coarse, and of a brownish color, ears low and inconspicuous, and eyes round and bright. ”

“ The woodchuck paths, that not long ago led from one clover patch to another and then on to well-hidden holes, lie pale and untravelled, while their fat owners are snugged down below in warm burrows with their noses folded in under their forepaws. Tradition has it that they will wake in a warm spell in midwinter and peer out of their burrows to see what the prospect of spring may be. ”

“ I once heard a vigorous discussion amongst men who know the woods and the ways of wild creatures, as to whether or not a woodchuck can climb a tree. The discussion ended rather abruptly when one of the party produced a photograph of a woodchuck a dozen feet up a big pine sitting on a small stub of a limb, looking somewhat exultant but also as if he wondered not only how he got so high but how on earth he was ever to get down again. ”

“ So he began running about the pasture in big circles. And he was lucky enough, before long, to come upon Mr. Woodchuck himself, who had dined so heartily on clover heads that he had decided to go to his chamber and take a nap.
Spot was unlucky enough to lose him. Mr. Woodchuck had been feeling quite sleepy. But when he suddenly found himself pursued by a dog he was wide awake in an instant and running like a youngster. ”

“ They were here before man came, and will be here, it is most likely, after he is gone; unless, as the old planet’s fires go out, man himself becomes a hibernator. I have heard a hunted woodchuck, at bay in a stone wall, gnashing his teeth against a dog; and I have seen a mother woodchuck with a litter of young ones playing about her as she lay at full length sunning herself, the very picture of maternal satisfaction: and my belief is that woodchucks have as honest a right as most of us to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ Refusals by the maiden, loud talk by the youth, sneers from the old cronies, flight of the lovers to the woodchuck’s hole, vermicular but affectionate concealment, like another Æneas and Dido. The woodchuck, stealing forth, sees a wolf outside, trying to make him pay his poll-tax ”

“ The woodchuck is a sluggish and stupid animal, which does not ordinarily go far from its burrow, but at certain seasons, especially in spring, wanders widely, as though looking over its territory before locating for the summer. It has much curiosity and often sits upright on its hind feet to look about, remaining for a long time as motionless as a statue. When one is driven into its burrow, if a person approaches quietly and whistles, it will often raise its head in the entrance and look about to satisfy its curiosity. ”

“ The woodchuck’s manner of providing for winter is very curious. Winter spreads far and fast, and Woodchuck, in order to keep ahead, out of danger, would need wings. But wings weren’t given him. Must he perish then? Winter spreads far, but it does not go deep—down only about four feet; and Woodchuck, if he cannot escape overland, can, [Pg 72] perhaps, escape underland. So down he goes through the winter, down into a mild and even temperature, five feet away—only five feet, but as far away from the snow and the cold as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco. ”

“ There was a woodchuck that lived over in the hill orchard. He was neither handsome nor interesting, but he knew how to take care of himself. He had digged a den between the roots of an old pine-stump, so that the foxes could not follow him by digging. But hard work was not their way of life; wits they believed worth more than elbow-grease. This woodchuck usually sunned himself on the stump each morning. If he saw a fox near he went down in the door of his den, or if the enemy was very near he went inside and stayed long enough for the danger to pass. ”

“ They have but four toes on the fore feet with the rudiment of a thumb. The woodchuck's first journey then appears to be to some neighboring hole which he remembers a dozen or fifteen rods off, and, perchance, he goes as straight or unerringly to it as if he had not been asleep all winter. Apparently, after a little gossiping there, his first work is to clear out the entrance to his burrow, ejecting the leaves and sand which have there collected. None have traveled beyond these holes, except that one track leads into the swamp. ”

“ The woodchuck loves such places, and now wabbles off with a peculiar loud squeak like the sharp bark of a red squirrel, then stands erect at the entrance of his hole, ready to dive into it as soon as you approach. As wild and strange a place as you might find in the unexplored west or east. The quarter of a mile of sproutlands which separates it from the highway seems as complete a barrier as a thousand miles of earth. Your horizon is there all your own. ”

“ The full-grown woodchuck rarely leaves the burrow except to forage. That done he spends some time usually just at the entrance sunning himself. But most of the time, day and night, he is within, presumably asleep half the summer long. The young woodchucks at this time of year are more often seen abroad, for the parents send them forth upon the world to earn their own living at a rather tender age. ”

“ The woodchuck is found throughout nearly the whole of the United States, and is especially abundant in New England, where it is a decided nuisance. It is found as far south as Tennessee, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. The flesh of the woodchuck is by many much esteemed as food, particularly in the Fall. When used for this purpose, the animal should be skinned and carefully cleaned immediately after death, taking especial care to remove the masses of fat which lie inside of the legs, as these, if allowed to remain, are sure to taint the flesh in cooking. ”

“ It is in the Big Burrow, which is certainly large enough for any reasonable creature. Here we are now at the mouth of the burrow.”
They were crossing a rough, uneven meadow, with trees and shrubs thickly scattered over it; and the woodchuck stopped at a large juniper-bush, in front of which sat a black rabbit.
“How do you do, Woodchuck?” inquired the rabbit. “And who is this with you?”
“This is a—a—a boy, in fact,” said the woodchuck in some embarrassment. “He is a great friend of mine, and has never seen a rinktum in his life, so I ventured to bring him. He—he won’t eat anything!” ”

“ Instead of giving chase to the woodchuck, when first discovered, he crouched down to the ground, and, resting his head on his paws, watched him. The woodchuck kept working away from his hole, lured by the tender clover, but, not unmindful of his safety, lifted himself up on his haunches every few moments and surveyed the approaches. Presently, after the woodchuck had let himself down from one of these attitudes of observation and resumed his feeding, Cuff started swiftly but stealthily up the hill, precisely in the attitude of a cat when she is stalking a bird. ”

“ There is a cordon of woodchuck-holes all around us. In the orchard, in the meadows, in the pastures, these whistling marmots have their dens. Here one might easily have woodchuck venison for dinner every day, yea, and for supper and breakfast, too, if one could acquire a taste for it. I tried to dine on a woodchuck once when I was a boy, but never have felt inclined to repeat the experiment. If one were born in the woods and lived in the woods, maybe he could relish a woodchuck. Talk about being autocthonous, and savoring of the soil—try a woodchuck! ”

“ When the woodchuck is leaner he goes to sleep by drowsily sitting upright, his head drooping lower and lower until he finally rolls into a round ball and falls on his side. But in late October the woodchuck is so nearly round with obesity that he cannot roll up and I fancy him just withdrawing his nose and his toes a little farther into himself, and going to sleep in that attitude with a sigh of content. ”

“ The woodchuck is a nuisance to the farmer, covering his field with loads of subsoil from the burrow and then eating the tender sprouts; and the farmer does not know enough to eat his tender corpse, but he is good to eat. If a rabbit and a chicken could have young, it would taste like a woodchuck.
Muskrats, mink, raccoons, and gray and fox squirrels are easily trapped; and the skins of those killed in that way find a steady market. Skins of poisoned animals do not sell so well, as they are rough and dry. ”

“ It hybernates during the winter, having first carefully closed the entrance of its burrow from within. It is susceptible of domestication, and is remarkable for its cleanly habits. Its cheeks are susceptible of great dilatation, and are used as receptacles for the food which it thus transports to its burrow. The capture of the woodchuck, forms one of the most exciting sports of boys, and it is very easily domesticated.
THE WOODCHUCK.
The woods abounded in other wild animals, all small and harmless, but extremely interesting to the children. ”

“ The incident broke in upon the drowsy summer noon, as did the appearance of the muskrat upon the frigid December night.
The woodchuck episode that afforded us the most amusement occurred one midsummer. We were at work in a newly-planted vineyard, when the man with the cultivator saw, a few yards in front of him, some large gray object that at first puzzled him. He approached it, and found it to be an old woodchuck with a young one in her mouth. She was carrying her kitten as does a cat, by the nape of the neck. Evidently she was moving her family to pastures new. ”

“ One evening in the late fall the Manito went through the forest in the form of a night wind. He looked in the door of the Woodchuck’s house in the side of the hill. It was empty!
Taking his way through the trees the Manito saw a little creature in a gray fur [Pg 88] blanket creeping softly along from one spot to another. He had short legs, and feet shaped like shovels. It was the Woodchuck. As he came to a place for which he had been looking, the Woodchuck would dig deep down in the earth with his paws. He would bring up a store of nuts and carry them back to his hole in the side of the hill. ”

“ The woodchuck seems to be a link between the rabbit and badger; its colour is that of a leveret; it climbs like the racoon and burrows like the rabbit; its eyes are large, full, and dark, the lip cleft, the soles of the feet naked, claws sharp, ears short; it feeds on grasses, grain, fruit, and berries. The flesh is white, oily, and, in the summer, rank, but is eaten in the fall by the Indians and woodsmen; the skin is not much valued. They are easily killed by dogs, though, being expert climbers, they often baffle their enemies, clinging to the bark beyond their reach ”

“ Air, air, fresh untainted air, preferably miles away. He departed to find it, at an initial velocity of something less than a mile a minute, while his adversary lowered his plumed tail and regarded him forgivingly. Then, with mincing, deliberate steps, the skunk started leisurely back to his home on the hillside, which had once been the property of a grizzled old woodchuck.
On a day, however, the woodchuck had come back to his burrow, only to find that he had been dispossessed. The woodchuck is a surly and dogged fighter, and always fully able and disposed to protect his rights. ”

“ The head, tail and feet partaking of a darker color. The length of the animal is about a foot and a-half, exclusive of the tail, which is four inches long.
The woodchuck is a clumsy looking animal, and anything but active in its movements. It is very unintelligent, and is always too ready to use its powerful teeth on the hand of any one who may attempt to handle it. It is naturally a timid animal, but when cornered or brought to bay, it fights most desperately. ”

“ When winter comes, the woodchuck rolls himself up in his nest and goes to sleep until spring. He is very fat when he takes to his bed in the fall, but is lean when he comes out ready for his next summer's work. ”

“ When full-grown, he will weigh from eight to twelve pounds. He is about one-half the size of the porcupine. He now takes a wife and establishes a home of his own. They choose a sunny hillside for their house. After tunnelling downward to allow for proper drainage, they begin tunnelling upward until they are about three feet below the surface. This tunnel runs about twenty-five feet in length, at the end of which is the living room. The Woodchuck's little bride brings soft grasses to line their little nest, and, presto, they have a home fit for a king. The Woodchuck is a native of New England. ”