358 NA TURE-STUDY REVIEW 



around the mouth of the opening in a crater shaped pyramid, 

 which is made finn by a great amount of tramping and pressing 

 with their noses. It is often from one to two feet high and three 

 or four feet in diameter, and serves not only as a dyke to keep 

 out the water but also as an observation tower where the owner 

 can sit and watch for the enemy or sprawl out and bask in the 

 sunlight. The white tailed prairie dogs pile the dirt in a great 

 mound on one side of the entrance. 



Only one family of from four to six young are raised during 

 a season and when about half grown they scatter and prepare 

 burrows of their own. In fact, in spite of the gregarious habits 

 of the prairie dog, it is seldom that there is more than one occupant 

 to a burrow. 



They hibernate during the most severe weather. In the south 

 the hibernation is irregular and may last for only a few days, 

 while in cold climates they sleep five or six months. 



Burrowing owls often live and breed in deserted dog holes but 

 never when the dogs are present as many people believe. 



The prairie dog's food is mostly grass and herbage, including 

 clover, lettuce, celery tops, carrots, potatoes, apples and the 

 stems and roots of gramagrass as well as any native fruits. 

 It also eats grasshoppers, but is very destructive to grain, 

 alfalfa, and other cultivated crops, as well as converting fertile 

 grass covered cattle ranges into dreary wastes by cutting irrigation 

 canals across them, with great loss to the cattle owners. It is 

 said that 2500 prairie dogs eat as much as a cow, and the pasture 

 consumed by the large colony in Texas would support over 1,500,- 

 000 cattle. 



There is a common belief that their burrows go down to water 

 but, as water is practically inaccessible in many of the regions 

 which they inhabit, this cannot be true. Like many rodents, 

 however, they have the ability by chemical action in the stomach 

 to transform starchy food in the stomach into water. They do 

 not, therefore, require water. 



They have many enemies in the fox, coyote, wild cat, eagle, 

 hawk and especially the rattle-snake and other serpents. It is 

 claimed that when a snake glides into a burrow the owner gives 

 a special kind of bark and immediately all his neighbors come 

 and fill up the hole with dirt, packing it hard and burying the 



