34 THE OREGON NATURALIST. 



THE ELK'S SENTINEL. strong claws for digging. Like ail the 



. other members of this family, they are 



HABITS OF THE WHISTLING MARMOT provided with powerful gnawing teeth, 



OF THE OLYMPICS. which can bite through a shoe-lace or an 



alpine staff, as the case required. In 



Five years ago the Olympic mountains color the animal is very variable, individ- 



were described as the last tract of unex- uals being found that are nearly black, 



plored land within the United States, and while some are gray. But the predomin- 



the same statement holds good today, for, ating color is tawny rufous, generally 



although a few parties have crossed the blotched with black and gray. The 



range from east to west, no one has yet pelage is composed largely of hair, and 



traversed the entire distance from* the Sko- the fur is so short and poor as to render 



komish river to Cape Flattery, and even the hide of no commercial value, 



the location of the largest peaks — Olympus This species of marmot is also met with 



and Constance — is to a great extent un- in the Cascade range, but not so 



decided. numerously as in the Olympics, where it 



As a game region, the Olympics have dwells in large colonies, sometimes 



gained a world-wide reputation, and a numbering over loo individuals, 



goodly numbor of dollars are annually As the weary traveler toils laboriously 



spent by hunting parties in attempts to up the mountain trail his progress is sud- 



penetrate into the interior of the well- denly arrested by the sound of a long, 



known Jupiterhills, where the cow elk clear whistle, floating down the canyon, 



raises her calf in security; the she bear, The sound is so human that unless he has 



guards her cubs against the attacks of heard it before he instinctively 'answers 



of the gaunt gray wolf, and the doe with it, thinking it to be the call of a comrade, 



fawn flees to a higher altitude for security The cry is repeated at short intervals, un- 



when she hears the warning cry of that til the traveler approaches too near the 



guardian of the gorge, the whistling mar- warren, when it suddenly stops, and all 



mot (Arctomyscaligatus). The whistling is as still as the grave, and nothing is to 



marmot is the largest of American rodents, be seen to indicate the animal's presence 



being equaled in size only by the beaver, except the few holes among the rocks. 



The marmots are thick-set animals, It is this cry that gives the animal its 



weighing, when full grown, from forty to name, and so peculiar is the call that, 



sixty pounds, and measuring overall from once heard, it is never forgotten, and 



twenty-six to thirty inches, with a short, several times when making inquiries of 



bushy tail of about eight inches in length. Indians as to whether the animal inhabited 



The head is broad and massive, and rests their locality the writer has had recourse 



on the powerful shoulders with hardly ^o imitating it, when the Indian would 



an apology for a neck. The fore limbs recognize the animal desired at once, 



areshort.thick, five-toed, and armed with These rodents choose their homes in 



