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Woodchuck — Part 3
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As soon as the woodchuck feels the grip of the trap on his foot, he settles back into his den and pulls with an amount of strength that is simply surprising, and often secures his liberty. If unable to free himself in this manner, he usually digs away the earth and blocks up the entrance of the hole with himself inside, and the owner of the trap is obliged to dislodge him as best he may. This is hard enough when the victim is a woodchuck, but if, as often happens, it proves to be a skunk, the result is truly disastrous. If left in the trap for any length of time, the woodchuck frequently releases himself by biting off his foot just below the jaws of the trap, but is less extravagant and wasteful in this matter than the muskrat, who not uncommonly leaves half an inch or more of leg sticking up above the trap, apparently gnawing it off wherever it is easiest and most convenient.
This is the woodchuck of the fields and cultivated lands. Many woodchucks, however, prefer to dwell in the pastures, where the grass is shorter and sweeter and they are less likely to arouse the ire of the owner of the land. Here they are obliged to wander farther afield in order to satisfy their appetites, but are generally in good condition for all that, and never appear to have any trouble in laying on a sufficient supply of fat during the summer to carry them over the cold season. In the pastures they are fond of sunning themselves on top of old stumps and smooth bowlders, the colour of their fur serving to make them comparatively inconspicuous when so engaged.
Then there is the woodchuck of the forest and woodlands, who really deserves the name of woodchuck, as it was in all probability first applied to the species by the early settlers-chuck or chucky, I believe, being a term frequently used in Devonshire and other English farming districts to designate little pigs, who were sometimes spoken of as barnyard chuckies; so that woodchuck might very properly be translated as little pig of the woods-not an altogether inappropriate title, at least as regards disposition.
The real woodchuck of the woods, instead of spending his days in the sunlit fields or open hard-wood groves and orchards, digs his hole among the rocks and ledges, beneath the roots of great hemlocks and pines, where the sun hardly penetrates and the decaying tree trunks are crossed and tumbled against each other overhead, supported and held in position by those that are still standing. Here he scrambles about among the underbrush and fallen branches, subsisting on berries and whatever green stuff is to be had in its season, probably feeding on edible mushrooms when they are to be obtained, like the partridges and squirrels who are his associates. He may frequently be seen of a summer afternoon stretched in the sun along some half prostrate log, evidently glad to take advantage of whatever of the sun's rays manage to penetrate among the shadows of his retreat. Enjoying as he does comparative immunity from the attacks of men and dogs, and having at the present day very few natural enemies to avoid, he should, and in all probability often does, live out his allotted time; and it is no uncommon thing to find the bones of these animals in hollow logs and similar places, showing no signs of having suffered a violent death. A careful observer of Nature once told me that he had once seen a woodchuck, apparently very old and feeble, laboriously digging a shallow hole in the soft earth, and that on returning, some hours later, he had discovered him curled up at the bottom of the hole quite dead, undoubtedly having died of old age after digging his own grave and crawling into it. He believed this to be a regular custom with them, and said that he had met with a number of people who asserted the same thing.
In one respect the forest woodchuck does not have so easy a time of it as his brethren who abide in the open country, seldom attaining to such an extreme condition of corpulency, and in consequence being compelled to awake and crawl out of bed much earlier in the spring, often making his appearance when the snow is still several feet deep. Such unfortunates are obliged to worry along as best they can until warm weather, seeking out the spots of bare earth beneath the evergreens and gnawing ravenously as the bark of trees or anything that can possibly be made to answer as a substitute for food. They are soon pitifully thin and so active as hardly to be recognized by one familiar only with well-fed summer specimens.