_juicy and pink and tender_: The muskrats eat grass stems and roots, so that under the water near the lodge you will often find in winter little stacks of these tender pink stems and roots ready for eating--much as the beaver stores up sticks of tender bark under the water near his lodge for food when the ice forms overhead. _Winter is coming_: Are you glad or sorry? Are you ready? CHAPTER IX TO THE TEACHER Let the pupils continue this list of examples of winter preparations by watching and observing for themselves. Every field, every tree, every roadside, will reveal the work done or going on under their eyes. Without preaching you may draw many an interesting and telling parallel with their own preparation--in school for instance. FOR THE PUPIL PAGE 67 “The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the Robin do then, Poor thing?” Where does the verse come from? Mother Goose? Yes, but who was she? _Chipmunk_: Our little striped ground squirrel, interesting because he has cheek-pouches and thus forms a link between the arboreal squirrels (gray squirrels, etc.) and the ground squirrels or spermophiles, of which the beautiful little thirteen-lined squirrel of the prairies is an example. _Whitefoot, the wood mouse_: The white-footed or wood mouse or deer mouse. PAGE 68 _Not so much as a bug or a single beetle’s egg has he stored_: Why not, seeing that these are his food? _a piece of suet for him on a certain lilac bush_: Whose bush might it be? Is there a piece on yours? _upon the telegraph-wires were the swallows--the first sign that the getting ready for winter has begun_: What kind or kinds of swallows? Have you any earlier sign? PAGE 69 _the few creatures that find food and shelter in the snow_: Name four of the _animals_ that so find their food and shelter. Are there any others? Look them up. PAGE 70 _there will be suffering and death_: In your tramps afield this winter look out for signs of suffering. There are many little things that you can do to lessen it--a little seed scattered, a piece of suet nailed up on a tree, a place cleared in the snow where gravel stones can be picked up. _or even three hundred pounds of honey_: By not allowing the bees to swarm, and thus divide their strength, bee-keepers often get more than three hundred pounds of comb-honey (in the little pound boxes or sections) from a single hive. The bees themselves require only about twenty to twenty-five pounds to carry them through the winter. PAGE 71 _the witch-hazels_: The witch-hazels do not yield honey so far as the author has observed. Suppose you watch this autumn to see if the honey-bees (do you know a honey-bee when you see _her_?) visit it. Whence comes this quotation? From which poem of Bryant’s:--