130 PRAIRIE MARMOT. 



to refrain at such moments from joining his aspira- 

 tions to the song which every creature around is 

 pouring forth to the Great Creator." 



The vast solitudes of those far- distant regions, 

 where man has not fixed his ahode, are generally 

 overshadowed with dense forests, which during 

 many ages have successively nourished and decayed. 

 These impart to the mighty landscape a character 

 of grand though sombre uniformity, hroken only by 

 the course of rivers, the ruggedness and sterility of 

 rock and soil, or where the furious hurricane has 

 thrown down majestic trees with a violence propor- 

 tioned to their resistance. The traveller who, im- 

 pelled by curiosity, advances beyond the " father of 

 the western rivers," finds himself gradually emerg- 

 ing from these apparently interminable shades, and 

 entering upon a new world. Before him extend 

 fields of the richest verdure, interspersed with clumps 

 of light and graceful trees, in the fashion of a park, 

 with the distant windings of the river, fringed, far 

 as the eye can reach, with cotton wood and willows. 

 After traversing these delightful solitudes, enlivened 

 by numerous herds of browsing animals, and arriv- 

 ing at the higher and more barren portions of the 

 tract, he is often startled by a shrill whistle, which 

 sounds to him as the signal of a lurking Indian. 

 But on advancing further, the innocent cause of 

 alarm is found to be a little quadruped, the Prairie 

 Marmot, whose dwelling-place is indicated by small 

 mounds of earth, near which he sits erect in an 

 attitude of profound attention. Similar mounds are 

 seen in various directions, extending over many 

 acres, and the whole forms one large village, con- 



