440 Miscellaneous. 



As I am speaking about rattlesnakes, I ask the permission of 

 the Academy to refer to a supposed society that travellers in the 

 prairies have sometimes mentioned. It is said to be composed 

 of three very dissimilar animals — a sort of small marmot (Arctomys 

 or Cynomys ludoviciana), an owlet {^Athene cunicularia), and a rattle- 

 snake ( Crotalus conjluentus, Say). 



I had the opportunity of visiting the seat of this supposed asso- 

 ciation. I met with it in the neighbourhood of the Salt liiver, which 

 is one of the affluents on the right bank of the Arkansas. Not far 

 from the Orande Saline, as the Indians call it, I saw two villages of 

 the prairie-dogs. They give this name to the places inhabited by 

 these little marmots, on account of the cry that they make when they 

 come out of their burrows. As they live in numerous families, their 

 villages are sometimes of considerable extent. One of those which 

 I visited was about half a kilometre in diameter : the other was 

 much smaller ; it was barely fifty or sixty metres broad. There 

 are some, I was told, a mile in diameter. The aspect of the two 

 villages which I saw was as different as the nature of the soil. The 

 narrower one, established in a level fertile spot covered with tall 

 herbage, presented a surface entirely denuded by the work of these 

 little animals, without a single blade of grass, but here and there 

 with little mounds from two to three decimetres in height, each one 

 surrounding an opening of the burrows, which communicate with 

 one another. From the summits of these eminences the marmots 

 observe the environs to ascertain that no danger menaces them. At 

 first they do not venture to put out any thing but their heads ; but 

 they utter that little sharp bark which has procured them their 

 name ; and as they become reassured they gradually come further 

 out. They do not, however, quit their hole and the mound until 

 after long observation of the neighbourhood ; and they reenter with 

 astonishing rapidity at the smallest appearance of danger. 



The larger village, established on dry, stony, and uneven ground, 

 had not so clean a surface as the first ; a thin herbage grew there. 

 It did not seem, as in the other village, that a vigilant edileship 

 took care of this less-favoured spot. It was in this latter village 

 that I found the three animals above mentioned together. I saw 

 the little owl come out of a burrow ; and I was fortunate enough to 

 procure it. The hole from which it issued was evidently frequented 

 also by the little marmots ; the freshly moved earth showed that it 

 was often traversed. This was not the case in another burrow, in 

 which I discovered the rattlesnake : the earth had not been scratched 

 for a long time. This opening was certainly abandoned by the 

 other animals, and it was clear that no intimacy existed between 

 these latter and the Crotalus. An Osage having killed the little 

 marmot before my eyes, I wished much to have the rattlesnake. I 

 had much trouble in making it come out of its retreat ; to force it 

 to do so I was obliged to irritate it for a long time with the ramrod 

 of my gun. Finally it came slowly out of the opening, and I was 

 able to pass my running knot round its neck. 



The three animals were sent to the museum. — Comptes Bendus, 

 Sept. 18, 1876, p. 603. 



