in his cheek pouches and dumping it near the
entrance. Then he comes to the surface and makes a new hole from
beneath, which is, of course, many feet from the first hole. This latter
is now closed up, and henceforth the new one alone is used. I have no
doubt this is the true explanation.

When nuts or grain are not to be had, these thrifty little creatures
will find some substitute to help them over the winter. Two chipmunks
near my study were occupied many days in carrying in cherry pits which
they gathered beneath a large cherry-tree that stood ten or twelve rods
away. As Nig was no longer about to molest them, they grew very
fearless, and used to spin up and down the garden path to and from their
source of supplies in a way quite unusual with these timid creatures.
After they had got enough cherry pits, they gathered the seed of a sugar
maple that stood near. Many of the keys remained upon the tree after the
leaves had fallen, and these the squirrels harvested. They would run
swiftly out upon the ends of the small branches, reach out for the maple
keys, snip off the wings, and deftly slip the nut or samara into their
cheek pockets. Day after day in late autumn, I used to see them thus
occupied.

As I have said, I have no evidence that more than one chipmunk occupy
the same den. One March morning after a light fall of snow I saw where
one had come up out of his hole, which was in the side of our path to
the vineyard, and after a moment's survey of the surroundings had
started off on his travels. I followed the track to see where he had
gone. He had passed through my woodpile, then under the beehives, then
around the study and under some spruces and along the slope to the hole
of a friend of his, about sixty yards from his own. Apparently he had
gone in here, and then his friend had come forth with him, for there
were two tracks leading from this doorway. I followed them to a third
humble entrance, not far off, where the tracks were so numerous that I
lost the trail. It was pleasing to see the evidence of their morning
sociability written there upon the new snow.

One of the enemies of the chipmunk, as I discovered lately, is the
weasel. I was sitting in the woods one autumn day when I heard a small
cry, and a rustling amid the branches of a tree a few rods beyond me.
Looking thither I saw a chipmunk fall through the air, and catch on a
limb twenty or more feet from the ground. He appeared to have dropped
from near