_Whitefoot, the wood mouse_: The white-footed or wood mouse or deer mouse.
_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?
_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.
_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.
_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:--
_put on their storm-doors_: In modern bee-hives there is a movable board in front upon which the bees alight when entering the hive; this can be so turned as to make a large doorway for the summer, and a small entrance for the cold winter.
_whole drove of forty-six woodchucks_: The author at one time had forty-six inhabited woodchuck holes on his farm.
_as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco_: The bobolink winters even farther south--beyond the banks of the Amazon.
_to sleep until dawn of spring_: What is the name for this strange sleeping? What other American animals do it? Name three.
_frogs frozen into the middle of solid lumps of ice_: Of course, this was never done intentionally: each time the frogs were forgotten and left in the laboratory, where they froze.