My notebook for May 21, 1902, contains the following: Was called quite a little way through the woods by several peculiar notes which I thought were made by a bird new to me; sounded like "buck-tray, buck-tray," rather explosively pronounced. I looked high and low over the trees, but for the life of me could not find a trace of the bird which I thought was there. Glancing down, within a few feet of me sat a chipmunk, and every few minutes he would utter those notes, his throat swelling out like a frog's. He sat as still as a statue, making the notes sound close or far just as suited his fancy, and he seemed to enjoy fooling me.

The chipmunk's striped coat is harmonious with his surroundings, and among the dead leaves he is hard to see. His colors also blend among the rotten logs.

His subterranean burrows are wonderful, and the distance he will burrow is remarkable. For a dog to dig them out is almost impossible. He passes the winter below the frost line, and likes no place better for his burrow that a protected hillside. All kinds of grain are stored in his pantry. During the summer time he delights in eating berries, and, like the red squirrel, likes wild cherries. This fruit seems to delight him, and he will store up the seeds of it for the winter.

He eats buckeyes with considerable relish. His cheek pouches are quite large for so small an animal. They are really only folds of the skin along the cheek and neck. I never discovered him eating grain where he found it. Always he hurries with it away to a safe retreat. It was about Christmas several years ago that I saw one come out from his winter home, play in the dead leaves and dig them over. Perhaps he was hungry, or had forgotten something, or wanted a change of diet. But he soon went back to his snug winter quarters.

THE MOLE.

The senses of hearing, taste and smell of the common mole are highly developed. The eyes are only rudimentary and resemble a great deal, it seems to me, the facet of a spider. For they only set in the skin and there is only a slight indentation to be found on the skull.

The cutting teeth are small and sharp, with the canines long and needle pointed; the true molars are broad with many raised conical elevations. This adapts the mole for feeding on beetles, worms and grubs, and various insects. Earthworms form a large part of their food.

My notebook contains the following: June 15, 1906. Plowing corn, found three hills directly over a mole runway. A big fat meadow mouse ran out and he was the one who had the corn from the hills. The pine mouse was also in evidence. They have taken quite a lot of corn. These mice make quite long burrows, and seem to smell the corn from one hill to another. Their burrows are considerably shallower that those of the mole, who is always busy hunting cut worms, grubs or wire worms.

The mole's teeth do not fit him for a vegetarian diet, but for one of worms. They do not hibernate. During the cold weather of last winter I saw where several of them had come out of the ground and were unable to get back again, as the soil was frozen too deep for them. A great number perished in their burrows.

Their homes are networks of tunnels, winding here and there, labyrinths of underground channels that are wonderful indeed. These underground chambers where they spend the winter are worked out with rare engineering skill.

Several years ago in late April I plowed out a nest of young moles. The little fellows were housed in one of the softest beds of dry grass and fur you ever saw-seven of them. They were only a week or so old but they could eat earthworms.

The amount of earth that the mole moves and handles is enormous. He delights to work best in a loose soil, where there are plenty of worms and insects to be had easily. The smell he gives off is offensive. Few cats or dogs will eat them.

The only damage he does to a lawn is that of making little hills and loosening the sod. And in the garden he does not do the damage charged against him. The pine mouse is responsible for much of it, for he follows in the burrows of the mole, appropriating it and does the mischief for which the mole gets the blame.

THE SHORT TAILED SHREW.

A nocturnal animal that delights in hunting insects and other animals even larger than himself, he is more than king in his domain, for the mice fear him and even the meadow mouse is worsted in battle with this gladiator, who knows no defeat. His sense of hearing is very acute. His vision is poor, but good enough for his needs, and besides his eyes are adapted for the lesser light of the night.

The shrew is a night prowler and a dog or cat hates him. His rank smell is his protection and seems to be even more powerful than that of the skunk.

He is a flesh eater and his teeth are remarkably sharp instruments for grinding the bodies of beetles. And he requires an immense amount of food to satisfy his appetite. Many a mouse fights his last battle with this Samson. Most people take him for a young ground mole. He uses many of the burrows of the mole, and like the latter does not eat vegetable food. He is one of the most beneficial of our small mammals.

Shrews are voracious eaters and it requires large supplies of insects and flesh to supply them. It seems they are never through eating. Theirs are the most interesting of lives, full of battles and conquests.

THE SMALL SHREW.

My notebook contains the following: July 1, 1906, found a small dead shrew, color brown, looked rather worn and faded, about two inches and a half long, tail about half an inch long, very minute small eyes. A very offensive scent, so penetrating it sickened me. Four toes on front foot and five on the back foot. A number of ants were trying to pull it over to their nest a few feet away but the task seemed too great for them. After I had measured and examined the shrew carefully I put it down within a few inches of the nest and more ants came, and they actually moved it to their home. There they began covering it over so that nothing else would take it. I have often wondered what caused the death of some of our wild animals. You find few dead ones, and it seems that few die natural deaths, for the infirm, weak and old are easy prey for their enemies.

THE COMMON RAT.

Also called Norway or Brown Rat.

The rat has profited remarkably from his association with man, and is capable of reasoning out quite complex details. Steel traps set to catch him will be covered up. It seems that his sense of smell is strong enough that he can scent where human hands have touched. If he can not cover up traps often he will throw them without getting caught.

A neighbor told me how the rats got at his seed corn, which he had put up stairs on a platform supported by wires. A clothes line was near the corn and the rats would climb up a rafter to a board sticking in the roof between the sheeting, then leap off on to the line and walk forefoot over forefoot to near the platform where they would swing back and forth and leap upon it. A tin placed on the line did no good, so the line was taken down. Then the rats would climb a rafter and leap on the platform. It costs the State near a million dollars a year to keep the tribe. Each one of them is capable of eating ten cents worth of grain every day of his life. They will ruin corn in the crib in a very short time, and in the granary they ought not to be tolerated. for they are among our filthiest of animals and they spread many diseases.

As chicken stealers they are not equalled even by the mink or weasel, for in one night a big rat will take fifty if he can get them. Where rats are thick it is almost impossible to raise young chickens.

NORTHERN WHITE FOOTED OR DEER MOUSE.

The fall of 1911 found the deer mouse collecting in large numbers in the corn shocks, and the nests of corn silk they made were wonderful. When a shock was torn down they would go bounding away through the snow like frightened deer. Their big eyes and large protruding ears and their tails sticking straight out made comical figures of them as they jumped along and hid beneath the snow. Their fright was terrible. They would shake and quiver, and when they were picked up their hearts were thumping hard. They would never try to bite, and after they had been stroked a

little over the back their fear became quieted somewhat. But what an animated bundle of fur each of them was when he was jumping about in the cornfield trying to hide.

Often have I wondered, did they know of the coming severity of the winter of 1911. Several times I asked myself this question. I am of opinion that many things are communicated by Nature to her wild folks through instinctive promptings. Pioneers who lived much of their time in the woods could foretell coming storms, and read the weather signs very accurately. "They just seemed to feel it," they said.

Several years ago while sitting on a log on a sheltered hillside I was much amused by the antics of a deer mouse. How playful he was! He would stop his play and sit up and give forth the quaintest little song I ever heard; a very musical little ditty, no louder than the weak trill of a canary, when it first starts to sing. This was the first time I had ever heard a mouse sing. It was something new to me and my notebook marks it as a red letter day.

The food of the white foot is grain principally, but they eat large quantities of weed seeds. They love wild berries and nuts. Their way of eating a hickory nut is peculiar. They will make just one large hole at the bottom of the nut and extract the meat partly with the tongue and feet. Like the house mouse they like to stay in the house or barn, and they are better educated in the ways of man than the house mouse ever was, or ever will be in a century of learning. When one is caught in a trap his friends become cannibalistic and eat him. Why they do this is a mystery.

It is my belief that the deer mouse, house mouse and meadow mouse each destroys one cent's worth of food every day of its life. If this is true each one of them in one year consumes three dollars and sixty-five cent's worth of grain or other food. And besides they waste much, for they are filthy things. They generally destroy more than they eat. And they carry disease germs to a certain extent.

The white foot will carry its young about with it, five to nine of them clinging to the mother's body. It is comical to see them being dragged quickly over the ground to a safe retreat.