356 ITS HABITS. 
far without coming to the surface, and beginning 
a new one. Like a skilful workman, he knows 
how to economise labour. Having to back the 
earth out of the mouth of the hole he is digging, 
the farther he gets in the harder grows the toil; 
and so he digs up through, and starts afresh, 
They seldom come out in the daytime, and I have 
but rarely heard them whistle until everything 
was still, and the twilight merged into night. 
The female has from four to six young at a 
birth, and she has about two litters in a year. 
The nest for the young is much like that of the 
rabbit, made of grass and leaves, and placed at 
the end of a deep burrow. In the winter they 
only partially hybernate, frequently digging 
through the snow to eat the bark and lichen from 
the trees. Their gait when on the ground is 
very awkward; their broad short feet are not 
fitted for progression, and they shamble rather 
than run, and can be easily overtaken. Where a 
colony of them have resided for any time, the 
ground becomes literally riddled with holes, and 
the trees and shrubs die for want of roots. I 
imagine, from having found abandoned villages, 
that they wisely emigrate when their resources 
are exhausted. The Indians esteem their flesh a 
great luxury, and trap them in a kind of figure-of- 
