66 The Mountaineer 
THE WHISTLING MARMOT 
Trevor Kincaip 
To one unaccustomed to mountain slopes and the peculiar 
life associated with the world above timber line, the manner 
in which the marmot introduces himself to strangers is both 
startling and pleasing. When the amateur mountaineer, leay- 
ing his human associates far below in the valley, toils upward 
above the limit of tree growth and emerges into the vast soli- 
tude of cloud-swept steeps, he feels far removed from others 
of his kind. Suddenly a shrill, buoyant whistle breaks upon 
his ear, and he is startled to think that the seeming waste of 
rock and moss is tenanted by man, and by youthful members 
of the species at that! When, however, he searches for the 
author of the flute-like cadence he is astonished to find the 
musician is not a biped but a four-footed mountaineer, clad in 
a warm furry coat to meet the exigencies of his alpine domicile. 
Familiarity with this fur-clad flutist does not breed contempt, 
but leads us to appreciate more fully the picturesque qualities 
of this dweller upon the lofty places of the earth. 
The marmot belongs to the extensive order of mammals, 
named in accordance with their universal gnawing propensities, 
the Rodentia, a group which includes the rats, hares, squirrels, 
beavers, ete. Tracing the family tree of our whistling friend a 
little farther, we find that zoologists classify him in the same 
family with the squirrel, chipmunk and ground-hog, viz., the 
Sciuridae. One more climb into the genealogical arbor and we 
find that our local alpine marmot belongs to the genus Marmota, 
and his full name when he is on dress parade in a museum, is 
Marmota caligata, this designation having been applied to the 
animal by Eschscholz in 1829. In some accounts of the species 
he travels under the alias of Arctomys pruinosus. The common 
names that have been used in describing the animal are also 
somewhat varied, such as, whistler, whistling marmot, hoary 
marmot, gray marmot, alpine marmot, ete. In early days the 
Canadian fur traders called the creature, siffleur. The word 
marmot is derived from the French, marmotte, and this by a 
