226 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



tie woodchucks, and are the most noisy and inquisi- 

 tive animals imaginable. They are never found 

 singly, but always in towns of several hundred in- 

 habitants ; and these towns are found in all kinds of 

 places where the country is flat and treeless. Some- 

 times they will be placed on the bottoms of the creeks 

 or rivers, and again far out on the prairie or among 

 the Bad Lands, a long distance from any water. 

 Indeed, so dry are some of the localities in which 

 they exist, that it is a marvel how they can live at 

 all; yet they seem invariably plump and in good 

 condition. They are exceedingly destructive to 

 grass, eating away everything round their burrows, 

 and thus each town is always extending at the bor- 

 ders, while the holes in the middle are deserted; in 

 many districts they have become a perfect bane to 

 the cattlemen, for the incoming of man has been the 

 means of causing a great falling off in the ranks of 

 their four-footed foes, and this main check to their 

 increase being gone, they multiply at a rate that 

 threatens to make them a serious pest in the future. 

 They are among the few plains animals who are 

 benefited instead of being injured by the presence 

 of man ; and it is most difficult to exterminate them 

 or to keep their number in any way under, as they 

 are prolific to a most extraordinary degree; the 

 quantity of good feed they destroy is very great, and 

 as they eat up the roots of the grass it is a long time 

 before it grows again. Already in many districts 

 the stockmen are seriously considering the best way 

 in which to take steps against them. Prairie-dogs 



