Johnny Chuck was the first one on hand the next morning. The fact is, Johnny was quite excited over the discovery that he had some near relatives. He always had supposed that the Woodchucks were a family by themselves. Now that he knew that he had some close relatives, he was filled with quite as much curiosity as ever Peter Rabbit . Just as soon as Old Mother Nature was ready to begin, Johnny Chuck was ready with a question. “If you please,” said he, “who are my nearest relatives?”  
“The Marmots of the Far West,” replied Old Mother Nature. “You know, you are a Marmot, and these cousins of yours out there are a great deal like you in a general way. The biggest and handsomest of all is Whistler, who lives in the mountains of the Northwest. The fact is, he is the biggest of all the Marmot family.”
 
“Is he much bigger than Johnny Chuck?” asked Peter Rabbit.
 
“Considerably bigger,” replied Old Mother Nature, nodding her head. “Considerably bigger. I should think he would weight twice as much as Johnny.”
 
Johnny's eyes opened very wide. “My!” he exclaimed, “I should like to see him. Does he look like me?”
 
“In his shape he does,” said Old Mother Nature, “but he has a very much handsomer coat. His coat is a mixture of dark brown and white hairs which give him a grayish color. The upper part of his head, his feet and nails are black, and so are his ears. A black band runs from behind each ear down to his neck. His chin is pure white and there is white on his nose. he is a light, color. His fur is thicker and softer than yours, Johnny; this is because he lives where it is colder. His tail is larger, somewhat bushier, and is a blackish-brown.”
 
“If you please, why is he called Whistler?” asked Johnny Chuck eagerly.
 
“Because he has a sharp, clear whistle which can be heard a very long distance,” replied Old Mother Nature. “He sits up just as you do. If he sees danger approaching he whistles, as a warning to all his relatives within hearing.”
 
“I suppose it is foolish to ask if he lives in a hole in the ground as Johnny Chuck does,” up Peter Rabbit.
 
“He does,” replied Old Mother Nature. “All Marmots live in holes in the ground, but Whistler lives in different country. He lives up on the sides of the mountains, often so high that no trees grow there and the ground is rocky. He digs his hole down in between the rocks.”
 
“It must be a nice, safe hole,” said Peter. “I guess he doesn't have to worry about being dug out by Reddy fox.”
 
“You guessed quite right,” laughed Old Mother Nature. “Nevertheless, he has reason to fear being dug out. You see, out where he lives, , the big cousin of Buster Bear, also lives, and Grizzly is very fond of a Marmot dinner when he can get one. He is so big and strong and has such great claws that he can pull the rocks apart and dig Whistler out. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Whistler is also called the Gray Marmot and the Marmot. He lives on grass and other green things and, like Johnny Chuck, gets very fat in the fall and then sleeps all winter. There are one or two other Marmots in the Far West who live farther south than does Whistler, but their habits are much the same as those of Whistler and Johnny Chuck. None of them are social. I mean by that you never find two Marmot homes very close together. In this they differ from Johnny's smaller cousin, Yap Yap the Prairie Dog. Yap Yap wouldn't be happy if he didn't have close neighbors of his own kind. He has one of the most social natures of all my little people.”
 
“Tell us about him,” begged Happy Squirrel before Johnny Chuck, who is naturally slow, could ask for the same thing.
 
“Yap Yap is the smallest of the Marmot family,” said Old Mother Nature. “In a way he is about as closely related to the Ground Squirrels as he is to the Marmots. Johnny Chuck has only four claws on each front foot, but Yap Yap has five, just as the Ground Squirrels have. He looks very much like a small Chuck dressed in light yellow-brown. His tail for the most part is the same color as his coat, but the end is black, though there is one member of the family whose tail has a white tip. In each cheek is a small , that is, a small pocket, and this is one of the things that shows how closely related to the Spermophiles he is.
 
“As I said before, Yap Yap is very social by nature. He lives on the great open plains of the West and Southwest, frequently where it is very dry and rain seldom falls. When you find his home you are sure to find the homes of many more Prairie Dogs very close at hand. Sometimes there are hundreds and hundreds of homes, making a regular town. This is because the Prairie Dogs dearly love the comp............