Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/452

436, we have no doubt, as early in August we dug out a nest beneath an oak, on the hill side, and we found, besides the nest proper, two nest-like cavities, and in one of which—that most distant from the nest—was about a quart of yellow corn (maize). We judge, therefore, that these "magazines" were dug out by the chipmunks late in the summer, and similar ones, no doubt, were excavated by the chipmunks in the stone-wall. What they did with the dirt we cannot guess. Certainly not a particle of it could be found about their nests' entrances.

About August 15th they commenced to work in real earnest. Instead of playful, careless creatures, that lived from hand to mouth, they became very sober and busy indeed. Instead of keeping comparatively near home, they wandered to quite a distance, for them, and, filling both cheek-pouches full of corn, chincapins (dwarf chestnuts), and small acorns, home they would hurry, looking, in the face, like children with the mumps. This storing away of food was continued until the first heavy white frosts, when the chipmunks, as a member of Congress once said, went "into a state of retiracy."

The food gathered, we believe, is consumed in part, on their going into winter-quarters, they spending some time in their retreats before commencing their hibernating sleep. This belief, on our part, is based on the result of digging out a third nest on the 3d of November. The last time we noted down seeing a chipmunk belonging to a certain nest was October 22d. Twelve days after we very carefully closed the three passages that led to the nest, and dug down. We found four chipmunks very cozily fixed for winter, in a roomy nest, and all of them thoroughly wide awake. Their store of provisions was wholly chestnuts and acorns, and the shells of these nuts were all pushed into one of the passages, so that there should be no litter mingled with the soft hay that lined the nest. How long this underground life lasts, before hibernation really commences, it is difficult to determine; but as this torpid state does not continue until their food-supply is again obtainable out-of-doors, the chipmunks, no doubt, store away sufficient for their needs throughout the early spring, and perhaps until berries are ripe.

So much for the present year, now nearly passed away; but we are not done with the chipmunks yet, and next year, if all goes well, we purpose to follow the wanderings of the young brood of the past summer, for, we suppose, the old couple will not want them after spring once fairly comes again this way.—Science-Gossip.