Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/245

Rh Chickarees and gray squirrels have been common enough throughout the cold weather, but the chipmunk, or striped squirrel, takes to its burrow in the late autumn, and sleeps away the winter. In other words, along with the woodchuck (the largest and the smallest of our New England squirrels being alike in this respect), it migrates—into the "land of Nod." I imagine, however, that its sleep is not so sound but that it wakes up now and then to feed, though as to this point I know really nothing, my impression arising wholly from the fact that chipmunks store away food. They would hardly do this, I should think, unless they expected to find a use for it.

Late in September, five months ago, I went to visit friends in the White Mountains, and one of the first things I heard from them was that Betty had disappeared. She had not been seen for about two months. Betty was a chipmunk that had been in the habit of coming upon the piazza, and had grown tame under kind treatment till she would take food from her friends' fingers and even climb into their laps. Once, in-