THE PRAIRIE DOG, OR WISH-TON-WISH. 601 
fore-paws. Another and another are similarly treated, and taking a fourth nut between 
its teeth, the Hackee dives into its burrow, packs away its treasures methodically, and 
then returns for another cargo. It is rather curious that it always carries four nuts at 
each journey. As the little creature goes along with its cheek-pouches distended to their 
utmost limits it has the most ludicrous aspect imaginable, its cheeks prodigiously swelled, 
and labouring most truly under an embarrassment of riches. 
The Hackee moves into its winter quarters early in November, and, excepting occasional 
reappearances whenever the sun happens to shine with peculiar warmth, is not seen again 
until the beginning of spring. The young are produced in May, and there is generally a 
second brood in August. Their number is about four or five. The male Hackee is rather 
a pugnacious animal, and it is said that during their combats their tails are apt to snap 
asunder from the violence of their movements. It is undoubtedly true that those members 
GROUND SQUIRREL, OR HACKEE.—Tamias Lysteri. 
are wonderfully brittle, but whether they undergo such spontaneous amputation is not 
so certain. 
Pretty as it is, and graceful as are its movements, it hardly repays the trouble of 
keeping it in a domesticated state ; for its temper is very uncertain, and it is generally 
sullen towards its keeper. Although the food of the Hackee is mostly of a vegetable 
character, it is occasionally diversified with other substances ; for the Chipping Squirrel, 
like his English relative, is occasionally carnivorous in his appetite. One of these animals 
was detected in the very act of robbing a bird’s nest and devouring the callow young. 
BETWEEN the squirrels and the marmots there are one or two intermediate links, one 
of which has already been noticed in Tamias, and another is found in the genus 
Spermophilus, to which the PratrieE Doc belongs. 
The Prairie Dog, as it is popularly called, is found in very great plenty along the course 
of the Missouri and its tributaries, and also near the River Platte. It congregates together 
in vast numbers in certain spots where the soil is favourable to its subterranean habits of 
life and the vegetation is sufficiently luxuriant to afford it nourishment. The colour of 
this animal is a reddish-brown upon the back, mixed with grey and black in a rather 
vague manner. The abdomen and throat are greyish-white, and the short tail is clothed 
for the first half of its length with hair of the same tint as that of the body, and for the 
remaining half is covered with deep blackish-brown hair, forming a kind of brush. The 
