1 lo Citicinnati Society of Xatural History. 



middle of the runway, nor near the intersection of two 

 branches, but lies near one of the entrances. 



An interesting query rises : At what point did the marmot 

 begin his excavation of this burrow? I opine he began at the 

 old stump, entrance No. 2. 



EXCAVATION C. 



With excavation C the locality changes. We are now 

 transported over one-half mile distant from the burrows A 

 and B. The burrow C lies on the edge of a beaver meadow, 

 where the ground is low, and in rain}^ seasons quite wet. It 

 lies at the foot of a range of hills located to the east, and 

 from their inclined western face the water descends into this 

 beaver meadow. 



When I began excavating here, I expected, without doubt, 

 to find a marmot within, but failed to do so. 



This burrow had three entrances. The northern-most one 

 A and the southern one B were in a line running nearly due 

 north. A surface track, made by marmots, extended in a 

 straight line from entrance B to entrance A, viz.: fourteen 

 feet, five inches ; thence this surface track extended thirt)-- 

 seven feet through the grass to a clover patch, whose nearest 

 edge was thirty-seven feet north of entrance A. This thirty- 

 seven foot track was not perfectly straight, but with slight 

 angulations or windings, right and left, reached the clover 

 patch at a point nearly due north of the entrance A. Below 

 ground the burrow gradually descended, in a direction due 

 east, for a distance of twenty-eight inches, to where the 

 vertical distance from the surface of the ground to the bottom 

 of the burrow was thirty inches. The burrow then turned to 

 the south, and at c the lowest point was reached, the runway 

 below a horizontal surface level of entrance A continually 

 descending to this point. On account of the simultaneous 

 rise of the surface of the ground, the vertical depth is forty 

 inches, but here the bottom of the burrow is ascending, and 

 continues to ascend to e, where a solid rock was reached at 

 its west wall. At this point, twenty-six and a half inches 

 from the surface to the bottom of the runway, the latter 

 enlarged and a branch way extended east, south of east, nearly 



