CURIOSITY OF BIRDS AND BEASTS 585 



his voice a mile away and then startle you with the noise 

 of a pack in full cry at your heels, and all the time the 

 little animal will be sitting behind a stone not fifty yards 

 from you. 



If you have ever seen one of these little wolves in 

 cockle burr time you will forgive it for many of its sins, 

 on the ground that it has received all the punishment 

 due even a wicked animal. The coyote's whole body is 

 then covered with burrs and the poor thing's tail is a 

 heavy, round ball of hair and burrs. They are comical 

 in appearance, and as they go bobbing over the prairie 

 one cannot help laughing, unless pity for the misery of 

 the brute curbs one's mirth. 



When we changed camp to a swail, where some tall 

 cottonwood trees grew on the edge of a marshy brook, 

 the hum of the insects was very noticeable, and their 

 voice had a familiar Eastern accent. In fact, we had to 

 fill our frying-pans with hot coals and cover them with 

 green boughs, to smudge out our tents before the mos- 

 quitoes would allow us to sleep. Here it was that the 

 sulphur-breasted fly catchers abounded, and their loud, 

 clear voices awoke us early in the morning so early that 

 the light from the outside, coming through our canvas 

 roof, was of a gray color, that showed no traces of sun- 

 shine. Comfortably snuggled in our sleeping bags, like 

 caterpillars in their cocoons, we were content to lie 

 awake and watch the antics of the big ground squirrels, 

 which at early dawn used the steep sides of our tepee for 

 a toboggan slide. 



I said we watched the antics of these animals, but 

 really it was only a shadow pantomime, for it was their 



