602 SAT URAL HISTORY. 



occasionally, but they have been known to live for six or eight months 

 without water, except such as they might get from their food and the dew 

 of the evening. 



The ground-squirrels are a connecting link between the marmots and 

 the true squirrels. The most marmot-like are some little forms — Sper- 

 mophiles. the books call them — which have no distinctive common name, 

 but which share the word gopher with the forms already enumerated. In 

 general, a description of their habits is about equivalent to what Ave have 

 previously given on the pouched gophers and the prairie-dogs, but we must 

 make room for an extract of another aspect of these animals from the 

 pages of Dr. Coues. " A gopher must be seen, and seen often, to be appre- 

 ciated. For instance, a gopher caught away from home is a very different 

 animal from one at the mouth of his hole. A most unreasonably timid 

 animal, considering how rarely he is molested, he never goes out without 

 feeling that he has taken his life in his hands. A thoroughly scared 

 gopher is the liveliest object in nature ; a mule kicking over the traces is 

 perfect repose in comparison. He doubles up and opens out like nothing 

 else I know of, with his absurd little whisk of a tail hoisted, and the way 

 he gets over ground without once looking back is amazing. Safe home, be 

 he never so frightened, he will stop to see what was the matter. He pops 

 bolt upright, stands stock still with his fore paws drooped affectedly in 

 front of him, looks demurely around, and squeaks out, ' Pooh ! who's 

 afraid ? ' as plainly as possible. But let one come a step nearer, and down 

 he goes on all fours, right over the hole, where he sits and scolds, with 

 back arched up, ready for a dive. When he does finally duck out of 

 sight, there is no mistaking his meaning ; the suggestive flirt of his tail, 

 the last thing seen, speaks volumes to a thoughtful observer. . . . But 

 the prettiest of all the exhibitions a gopher can make of himself is when 

 he frames his profile in the rim of his burrow. Not seldom, after running 

 some little fellow to earth, have I stood still, just by the hole, and confi- 

 dently waited for his reappearance. Presently I hear a little scratching, 

 perhaps a squeak, and then I see his head, turned roguishly to one side, 

 to throw one black eye full upon me, as if to ask what manner of creature 

 I may be, to stand thus boldly at his door. He looks as if he would like 

 to invite me in, and then laugh at me for being too big and too clumsy 

 to enter." 



In the pretty little ground-squirrels — chipmunks, every one calls them 

 — we are a step nearer the true squirrels ; pretty and graceful they are as 

 they sit perched upon the stone wall, or run along the rails of a fence, 

 their reddish fur ornamented with stripes of white and black. Every boy 

 knows them thoroughly. At the roots of j^onder tree is a small hole, dug 



