It is quite solitary in its habits, seldom more than one
inhabiting the same den, unless it be a mother and her young. It is
not now so much a wood chuck as a field chuck. Occasionally, however,
one seems to prefer the woods, and is not seduced by the sunny slopes
and the succulent grass, but feeds, as did his fathers before him, upon
roots and twigs, the bark of young trees, and upon various wood plants.
One summer day, as I was swimming across a broad, deep pool in the
creek in a secluded place in the woods, I saw one of these sylvan
chucks amid the rocks but a few feet from the edge of the water where I
proposed to touch. He saw my approach, but doubtless took me for some
water-fowl, or for some cousin of his of the muskrat tribe; for he went
on with his feeding, and regarded me not till I paused within ten feet
of him and lifted myself up. Then he did not know me; having, perhaps,
never seen Adam in his simplicity, but he twisted his nose around to
catch my scent; and the moment he had done so he sprang like a
jumping-jack and rushed into his den with the utmost precipitation.
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