156 ANIMALS OF THE 



die of April. This animal's little retreat is made 

 with great precaution, and fitted up with art. It 

 is a hole on the side of a mountain, extremely 

 deep, with a spacious apartment at the bottom, 

 which is rather longer than it is broad. In this 

 several marmots can reside at the same time, 

 without crowding each other, or injuring the air 

 they breathe. The feet and claws of this animal 

 seem made for digging ; and, in fact, they burrow 

 into the ground with amazing facility, scraping 

 up the earth like a rabbit, and throwing back 

 what they have thus loosened behind them. But 

 the form of their hole is still more wonderful ; it 

 resembles the letter Y ; the two branches being 

 two openings which conduct into one channel, 

 and this terminates in their general apartment that 

 lies at the bottom. As the hole is made on the 

 declivity of a mountain, there is no part of it on 

 a level but the apartment at the end. One of 

 the branches or openings issues out, sloping 

 downwards ; and this serves as a kind of sink or 

 drain to the whole family, where they make their 

 excrements, and where the moisture of the place 

 is drawn away. The other branch, on the con- 

 trary, slopes upwards, and this serves as their 

 door upon which to go out and in. The apart- 

 ment at the end is very warmly stuccoed round 

 with moss and hay, of both which they make an 

 ample provision during the summer. As this is 

 a work of great labour, so it is undertaken in 

 common ; some cut the finest grass, others gather 

 it, and others take their turns to drag it into their 

 hole. Upon this occasion, as we are told, one of 



