The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-02-17
Idaho Country Life
WINTER LIFE OF WILD GREAT
URES
BY D. LANCE in Arkansas School
Journal" for December


To keep alive, during the northern
winters, all living creatures neeG
shelter and fuel. How animals with
only their senses and instincts to
guide them out and with nothing but
the organs of their own bodies fol-
tools wrest living from stern Mo-
Their Nature during winter forms a
most fascinating chapter in natural
history.
Bears, badgers, raccoons and
skunks have simple way; they close
up shop, SO to speak, and go and
sleep until Mother Nature is over
her annual spell of sternness. None
of the four is swift hunter orrun-
ner, but they rather incline toward
la certain aldermanic ease, which
j seems to fit their physique and their
station in the wild life of forest or
| field.
Generally nature provides literally
for this quartet. Almost everything
is food for one or all of them. Ber-
ries, nuts and corn, frogs, eggs,
young birds, roots, insects and worms,
gophers and mice, even carrion when
nothing better can be found. AS a
result of liberal feeding and quiet
temperament they grow very fat in
the fall, and when the ground begins
to freeze hard and digging and nos
ing around after food no longer pays,
they just retire for a nap of several
months.
The bear curls up under a root
or log or finds a small natural cave,
and blanket of snow soon completes
his shelter. The raccoon finds a hol-
low tree, while badgers and skunks
retire into burrows they have dug
in the ground. Now the storms may
blow and frost may split the forest
trees, but the four sleepers do not
care; they are wrapped in heavy
coat of fur and liberal store of fat
furnishes food and fuel for their
bodies. The fires of life are banked
and burn low, and who will say that
the winter sleepers have not hit upon
at least as successful a solution of a
difficult problem as many of their
more active competitors of field,
marsh and forest?
Many Others Sleep Away Long Winter
Indeed, we might easily increase
this list of four to the legendary
seven or any greater number. Wood
chunks, gophers and chipmunks also
sleep away the long winter in bur-
rows in the earth. If no accident
befalls them. such as untimely floods,
the tracks of all these winter sIeepers
will again be seen when the birds
return north and the buds begin to
swell.
A large number of the wild do not
hibernate. Wolf, fox and panther,
lynx and wildcat. mink, weasel, mar
ten and fisher now follow their hunt
ing trails with even more keenness
than during the time of abundance of
They have no fixed winter
home or lair, but all know their ter
ritory as well as a boy knows his
orchard, and they can
always find shelter in storms, and
generally they find enough food to
bring them safely through, though |
saunt and hungry they may be, when
1t last spring again unlocks the great
of nature.
These active flesh-eating hunters
'ould give most of us lessons in fast
ng; they eat when meat is plentiful
md fast when there is none. Most
If them can probably fast week
without special hardship. If wolf
gets one full meal week he will
'ome through the winter strong and
n good condition.
But where hunters can live there
must be those that are hunted, ind
where there are flesh eaters there
must be those that change grass into
lesh for them, and 1t Is true that
large number of the peaceful folk
# nature do not go to sleep with the
and the gopher. II
Rabbits Life Uncertain
Moose, elk and deer find browse
nd grass all winter, If the snowfall
) not too heavy. Squirrels, rabbits
nd wood mice also find their daily
read the year round. and it is prin-
ipally the timid rabbit and the le-
ions of wild mice whose flesh feeds
Wenatchee got busy For several c