142 . OWLS AND MARMOTS. 



companions owls and rattlesnakes. The parasites live 

 at the expense of the prairie dogs, who serve them as 

 builders, and too often, it is said, for .food. They prey 

 upon the industrious little creatures who provide them 

 with a dwelling-place. 



We were desirous of obtaining a confirmation of this 

 statement, but all our researches proved fruitless; we 

 did not see the tail of an owl, nor hear the slightest 

 rustling of a rattlesnake. This republic of the prairie 

 of the Pawnees was, perhaps, more fortunate than others, 

 and had succeeded in expelling from its limits the in- 

 truders who do so much injury in similar communities. 



I was informed that the owls who generally secrete 

 themselves in the burrows of the American marmots 

 belong to a very peculiar race; their eyes are more 

 brilliantly transparent, their flight is more rapid, and 

 their feet are more erect than those of the common 

 owls. Daylight does not frighten them as it does their 

 congeners. The American naturalists affirm that, as a 

 rule, these owls do not take possession of the burrows ex- 

 cavated by the marmots unless the latter have abandoned 

 them on account of the death of one of their number. 



For it would seem that the American marmot carries 

 his sensibility to such an excess, as, immediately a single 

 member of his community dies, to emigrate from the 

 place. 



Others have assured me that the owl acted as a pro- 

 tector, as a sentinel, as a tutor even to the young mar- 

 mots, whom he taught to cry even before he strangled 

 them ! 



So far as relates to the rattlesnake, he seems to play a 



