ANIMALS OF THE 



day, and is always most active by night. Some 

 naturalists gravely caution us not to let it get 

 among our corn-fields, where they tell us it will 

 do a great deal of damage, by cropping the corn 

 as soon as it begins to ear ! * 



THE MARMOT. 



FROM the description of the squirrel and its va- 

 rieties, we proceed to a different tribe of animals, 

 no way indeed resembling the squirrel, but still 

 something like the rabbit and the hare. We are 

 to keep these two animals still in view, as the 

 centre of our comparison; as objects to which 

 many others may bear some similitude, though 

 they but little approach each other. Among the 

 hare kind is the Marmot, t which naturalists have 

 placed either among the hare kind or the rat 

 kind, as it suited their respective systems. In 

 fact, it bears no great resemblance to either ; but 

 of the two, it approaches much nearer the hare, 

 as well in the make of its head, as in its size, in 

 its bushy tail, and particularly in its chewing the 

 cud, which alone is sufficient to determine our 

 choice in giving it its present situation. How it 



* He may easily be made tame ; but he is apt to do a great deal of 

 damage in the corn-fields, because he will crop the corn as soon as it begins 

 to ear. Brooke's Nat. Hist. 



[f This animal has two wedge-like cutting teeth in each jaw ; the 

 grinders are five above, and four below, on each side ; and there are per- 

 fect clavicles or collar-bones.] 



