A woodchuck can bite severely, having teeth that cut like chisels, but a coon has agility and power of limb as well.
He approached it, and found it to be an old woodchuck with a young one in her mouth.
In July the woodchuck was forgotten in our interest in a little gray rabbit which we found nearly famished.
Again the woodchuck was on the outlook, again Cuff was motionless and hugging the ground.
Presently, after the woodchuck had let himself down from one of these attitudes of observation and resumed his feeding, Cuff started swiftly but stealthily up the hill, precisely in the attitude of a cat when she is stalking a bird.
He was the smallest woodchuck I had ever seen, not much larger than a large rat.
The woodchuck is the true serf among our animals; he belongs to the soil, and savors of it.
One day, sitting thus, he discovered a woodchuck about forty rods from the house, on a steep sidehill, feeding about near his hole, which was beneath a large rock.
In form and movement the woodchuck is not captivating.
At that moment the woodchuck discovered his danger, and, seeing that it was a race for life, leaped as I never saw marmot leap before.
The woodchuck episode that afforded us the most amusement occurred one midsummer.
For two months life at Birch Camp much resembled that of a woodchuck or a squirrel.
Did this critter sorter wobble like a woodchuck runnin'?
Then I'll ask Aunt Polly Woodchuck to meet you by the bars to-morrow morning," the Muley Cow promised.
According to the Muley Cow, Aunt Polly Woodchuckwas an herb doctor--and a good one, too.
And she hadn't waited long at the bars when Aunt Polly Woodchuck came hobbling up to her.
Henrietta Hen's voice trembled as she told Aunt Polly Woodchuck the dreadful news.
The woodchuck is in his hibernaculum, the skunk in his, the mole in his; and the black bear has his selected, and will go in when the snow comes.
The prairie fox, the cross fox, and the black or silver-gray fox seem only varieties of the red fox, as the black squirrel breeds from the gray, and the black woodchuck is found with the brown.
Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.
A Ram's Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck Sounds something like.
His garden had suffered somewhat from the visits of a woodchuck that lived in a hole close by.
His argument was a strong one against all wild and destructive animals in general, and against this woodchuck in particular.
The woodchuck had as much right to live as any other thing that breathes.
Illustration: Cathedral Peak] Carlo caught an unfortunate woodchuck when it was running from a grassy spot to its boulder-pile home--one of the hardiest of the mountain animals.
One woodchuck would outweigh a hundred chipmunks, and yet he is by no means a dull animal.
How long a woodchuck lives in this bracing air I don't know, but some of them are rusty and gray like lichen-covered boulders.
And Billy Woodchuck almost choked over a clover top, he was so excited.
So Billy Woodchuckand Fatty Coon gave their hats and coats to Jimmy.
And though Mr. Crow tried to learn what the question was, Billy Woodchuck wouldn't tell him.
And when at last she said she was ready for the contest Billy Woodchuck still urged her to stretch her legs a bit more.
And soon he returned with Billy Woodchuck and Fatty Coon at his heels.
Nimble wanted to return that wink that Billy Woodchuck gave him.
And Aunt Polly Woodchuck herself laughed hardest of all.
And when she seemed about to stop Billy Woodchuck whispered to her, "You may as well keep a-stretching them.
So Billy Woodchuck and Jimmy Rabbit could never agree upon this question of the best jumper in Pleasant Valley.
At that answer Billy Woodchuck set up a loud clamor.
Then Billy Woodchuck crawled under the fence and came hurrying up.
Living as he did in the pasture, Billy Woodchuck had often seen and admired the Muley Cow as she jumped the fence in order to get into the clover patch, or the cornfield, or the orchard.
I was hungry; I'd had nothing to eat all day but the last leg of a woodchuck that I knocked on the head day before yesterday.
The woodchuck is found throughout nearly the whole of the United States, and is especially abundant in New England, where it is a decided nuisance.
Many a woodchuck has been secured by the aid of this simple invention.
The flesh of the woodchuck is by many much esteemed as food, particularly in the Fall.
The woodchuck is an expert excavator, and where the animals exist in large numbers great damage is done by their united burrowing.
The woodchuck is a clumsy looking animal, and anything but active in its movements.
The legs of the woodchuckare short and stout, and made for digging rather than running.
The woodchuck kept working away from his hole, lured by the tender clover, but, not unmindful of his safety, lifted himself up on his haunches every few moments and surveyed the approaches.
When thewoodchuck rose up again, Cuff was perfectly motionless and half hid by the grass.
It is not now so much a WOODchuck as a FIELDchuck.
He went to the trouble to write down for us the lines of the Woodchuck: "How much wood would the woodchuck chuck If the woodchuck could chuck wood?
Snakes coiled round his leg, the fishes swam into his hand, and he took them out of the water; he pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the foxes under his protection from the hunters.
One would see the woodchuck asleep in his burrow, snugly rolled up and living on his own fat.
Just over the line of stone wall in the orchard a woodchuck comes hesitatingly out of his hole and goes nibbling in the grass not fifty feet away.
The sight of a woodchuckat a distance from his well-known hole tempted John, but he restrained himself, lest somebody should see him, and know that chasing a woodchuck was inconsistent with the stomach-ache.
One day on his way to school a woodchuck crossed the road before him, and John gave chase.
I do not know why it is that boys so like to hunt and kill animals; but the excuse that I gave in this case for the murder was, that the woodchuck ate the clover and trod it down, and, in fact, was a woodchuck.
The woodchuck scrambled into an orchard and climbed a small apple-tree.
I did not reflect then that it would have been more in the interest of civilization if the woodchuck had killed the dog.
At that moment I rushed in, occupied the "home base," yelled to Turk, and then danced with delight at the combat between the spunky woodchuck and the dog.
John then made a pivot of one leg and whirled himself around, swinging the woodchuck in the air, until he shook him off; but in his departure the woodchuck carried away a large piece of John's summer trousers-leg.
Thereupon the woodchuck dropped down on John and seized him by the leg of his trousers.
It was first necessary by patient watching to ascertain that the woodchuck was at home.
It is a well known habit of the mink to be crawling into every hole he comes to, and I have known them to go one hundred yards out of their path, just for the pleasure of investigating an old woodchuck hole.
I have two methods for trapping them; one is to find a hole along some stream, an old muskrat or woodchuck hole is best.
But the old woodchuck was a shy creature, and not knowing what guile the little boy's cordial greeting might mask, the old woodchuck discreetly disappeared in his hole, much to the little boy's amazement.
And at that very moment the old woodchuck reared his hoary head by the hole in the pasture, and he looked this way and that and wondered why the little boy never came any more.
They called so loudly that the still air of that autumn morning was strangely startled, and the old woodchuck in the pasture 'way off yonder heard the echoes and wondered.
During their rambles one day, Fido and his little boy friend had come to the pasture, and found the old woodchuck sitting upright at the entrance to his hole.
The old woodchuck saw him coming and ambled out to meet him.
Then Fido trotted sadly down the lane to the pasture to talk with the old woodchuck about this strange thing.
Around the bend--near the medder where Si Barker's dog killed a woodchuck last summer--we meet the rest.
When he saw the woodchuck solemnly perched at the entrance to his hole he was simply delighted.
You must tell us how the woodchuck manages to get to the bottom of the hole in order to start digging upward.
Instead of beginning at the surface of the ground and digging downward, the woodchuck begins at the bottom of the hole and digs up toward the light and air.
Darrin," he said, "can you tell me why it is that a woodchuck never leaves any dirt heaped up around the edge of his hole?
If I understand aright," Dan went on, "you asked how the woodchuck manages to get to the bottom of the hole before he begins to dig.
The dog would draw the woodchuck partly out from the wall, and the woodchuck would take the dog back.
Soon an opportunity offered, and the old man struck; but the woodchuck gathered up at the same time, took the dog in far enough to receive the blow, and the dog's head was chopped off on the spot.
An' we won't kep yer in dis woodchuck hole arter nine ob de ev'nin'.
The woodchuck unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started yet.
We was directed to a kind of private hotel called Woodchuck Inn, and thither me and Andy bent and almost broke our footsteps over the rocks and stumps.
Which aspect he corroborates by telling us that he is the host and perpetrator of Woodchuck Inn.
Towser roared, bellowed and squealed, but the woodchuck would not let go his lucky hold.
Now a desperate struggle ensued, the woodchuck trying to pull the dog into the hole and the dog trying to pull the woodchuck out.
At last the right stone was removed and the unfortunate oldwoodchuck could do no better than face grim death, and he did it bravely.
Towser plunged into the wall and out came the woodchuck, but to our surprise, Towser had not got the woodchuck, but the woodchuck had Towser right by the nose.
The woodchuck chattered and squealed, the dog shook and growled, as I pulled them out, when the tail broke, he darted into the hole, and the game was lost.
We boys, Gordon and I, drop our hoes and run, for we knew by the sound that old Skip had a woodchuck in the wall and wanted us to come and get him out.
Lemuel Warner followed up the woodchuck story by acting out, in his genial manner, the stuttering man trying to testify in prayer-meeting.
