mb if
it is not protected. With his bushy tail and large head he is half fox
and half wolf in appearance, and mean enough in habits to be both. He
can outrun a dog and even a deer, and though he catches jack-rabbits
and the Molly Cottontail usually for food, he would help his brother,
the wolf, to kill a poor harmless sheep.

This gray wolf is a savage creature and hides in the thick forests by
day, slinking out at night to the nearest sheep corral or turkey-pen
if he can find one unwatched by some faithful dog. His friend and
neighbor, the fox, likes fat geese and chickens as well as birds,
squirrels, and wood-rats. The queer raccoon lives in the redwoods and
is often caught and kept in a cage or chained for a pet.

Wildcats, both gray and yellow, are found in the thickly timbered
parts of California, and the badger makes his home in the mountain
canons or pine woods. There, too, the curious porcupine dwells. He is
covered with grayish white quills, which bristle out when he is angry
or frightened. No old dog will touch this animal, for he knows better
than to get a mouthful of sharp toothpicks by biting Mr. Porcupine,
who is like a round pincushion with the pins pointing out. A dog who
has never seen this prickly ball will dab at it, and have a sore paw
to nurse for weeks after.

Two or three kinds of tree-squirrels live in the pines and redwoods,
the Douglas squirrel being well known in the mountains. The ground
squirrel, or chipmunk, digs holes in the ground, where he hides his
winter's store of grain and nuts.

Three of our smaller wild animals are very common and very troublesome
to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white
kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the
chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is
hard to keep them out of the hen-house. That little pest, the gopher,
we are all well acquainted with, since he gnaws the pinks and roses
off at their roots in your city garden while his large family of
brothers and sisters kill the farmer's fruit-trees and vines. The
gopher digs long tunnels under ground, making storerooms here and
there in these passages, which he fills with grass, roots, and seeds.
In each cheek he has a pouch, or pocket, large enough to hold nearly a
handful of grain, so the little rascal carries his stores very easily.
The traps and poison by which the farmer is always trying to make way
with him, he is sly enough t