AN OLD NATURALIST CONRAD GESNER. 



57 



nest with two openings one, pointing up the mountain, is used 

 for walking in and out, while the other, which points down the 

 mountain, is not used for these purposes, but as a place for de- 

 positing urine and fseces. A short passage leads from the burrow 

 which connects these openings to a room or nest which is lined 

 with hay, straw, or similar light substances. 



About Michaelmas, when the mountains begin to be covered 

 with snow, they hide themselves in their house, first plugging the 

 openings with earth so firmly that they are harder to dig with a 



Fig. 10. 



shovel than the undisturbed ground around them. Thus securely 

 protected from wind, rain, and cold, and rolled up in balls, like 

 hedgehogs, they sleep through the whole winter, without food 

 or drink, till spring comes again. Five, seven, nine, eleven, or 

 even more, are often found thus sleeping in one nest. The prov- 

 erb " He sleeps like a marmot " is applied to lazy people by the 

 inhabitants of these regions. Even when kept and fed in houses, 

 they sleep through the winter. That very learned man Dr. Con- 

 rad Gesner says that he fed one for some time in his house, and 

 at the beginning of winter, about the time when it should have 

 gone to sleep, he put it in a small pine barrel, which he half filled 

 with straw and then closed up tightly with the head belonging to 

 it, to protect his pet from the cold. When he opened the barrel 

 after many days he found the animal dead. He thinks it was 

 suffocated and that it might have lived if he had made a hole in 

 the barrel, although he is very much astonished by the result of 

 his experiment, and does not now see how they can survive in 

 their nest when the holes are plugged up. 



They make use of a peculiar device for bringing home their 

 hay. If they have gathered a great quantity they need a wagon 

 to carry it, and one of them lies down on his back and, lifting his 

 feet toward heaven, forms supports like those of a hay wagon, be- 

 tween which the others pile the hay. When the cart is loaded, 

 the other marmots take the tail in their mouths, drag their 

 brother home like a sled, and, after unloading him, put the hay in 

 their holes. As each one takes his turn of service as a sled, none 

 of them have any hair on their backs at this season of the year. 



