A STRANGELY MARKED ANIMAL 



197 



THIRTEEN-LINED SPERMOPHILE. 



The Thirteen-Lined, or Leopard Spermophile, 1 is the 

 most familiar and widely distributed species, and although 

 one of the smallest, it is also the most strangely marked. 

 Nature was in a sportive mood when she decorated the back 

 and sides of this little creature with seven broad stripes of 

 dark brown, then laid between them six narrow stripes of 

 pale yellow, and finally 

 marked each of the seven 

 brown stripes with a row 

 of large, pale-yellow 

 spots. The yellow spots 

 on the brown lines are 

 the first feature of the 

 color scheme to catch the 

 eye, and they distinguish 

 this animal almost as far as it can be seen. Its under-parts 

 are pale yellow, and its size is 6^+33^ inches. 



Do not call this animal the "Striped" Spermophile, be- 

 cause that name would apply to several other species, and 

 be worthless; and do not call it the "Striped Gopher," be- 

 cause it is not a "gopher" of any kind. 



The Thirteen-Lined Spermophile inhabits about one-third 

 of the United States, extending from Fori Wayne, Indiana, 

 southwest ward to Fort Worth, Texas, and northwestward to 

 the plains of the Saskatchewan. lis western limit is the 

 Rocky Mountains, but nowhere does it live in timbered re- 

 gions, being strictly a prairie animal. 



Its burrow is a hole about two inches in diameter, which 



1 Ci-tel'lus tri-de'cem-lin-e-a'tus. 



