The forefathers found the woodchuck here, probably in the first spring garden which they planted over the graves of the dead in Plymouth, saw how much he had eaten and promptly named him, his name meaning "little pig of the woods." Chuck or chuckie is a word of their time, and I dare say now, meaning "little pig." The idea is again expressed in the rather less polite form of "ground hog" and the hereabouts at least, little known "Maryland marmot" is a third. Scientifically he is known as Arctomys monax, being a rodent and classed with the marmots, very close relatives of the squirrels. Perhaps it is through this family affinity that he is able to climb my bean poles. The woodchuck has one other distinguishing characteristic which deserves reference, that is his ability as a sleeper. As a home body he is great. As an absorber of garden truck he is greater. But when the sun of October swings low in the south and he has become so fat that he seems to roll to and from his burrow on castors is when he shows his most surprising characteristic. Mr. Wardle's fat boy with all his fame never slept as the woodchuck then prepares to sleep, however well he matched his eating. The first chill wind sets him to dragging dry leaves and grass down into the snuggest chamber of his burrow and there a little later he tucks his nose in between his little black-gloved forepaws and goes to sleep. When the woodchuck is leaner he goes to sleep by drowsily sitting upright, his head drooping lower and lower until he finally rolls into a round ball and falls on his side. But in late October the woodchuck is so nearly round with obesity that he cannot roll up and I fancy him just withdrawing his nose and his toes a little farther into himself, and going to sleep in that attitude with a sigh of content. The woodchuck's chief fame seems to rest on this trait, his ability to go to sleep before cold weather and not wake up again until the spring has again brought out the green things for his delectation. To be sure tradition has it that the ground hog comes to the mouth of his burrow on Candlemas Day and looks for his shadow that he may figure out how much longer he may sleep. But that I take to be a mere literary furnishing, like the chuck part of the animal's name, brought from England with the pioneers and adapted to use in this country. Probably it is said in England of the dormouse, which also sleeps winters, as does the woodchuck, though I believe lightly compared with our animal. The woodchuck is far too sound a sleeper to wake up on a February day, whatever the inducements. That matter is no more to be taken seriously than is the old-time Yankee query-- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, If a woodchuck would chuck wood?