36 A MARMOT COMMUNITY. 



to protect himself from the cold, and abandons himself to 

 what we may suppose to be the pleasures of a prolonged 

 rest. He remains in his subterranean retirement until 

 aroused by the genial airs of spring, when he throws open 

 his doors, and reappears in the " outside world " in all his 

 original liveliness and gaiety. 



An American traveller furnishes a picturesque account 

 of " a village of prairie dogs " (or marmots) : — 



I know not, he says, whether the instinct of the mar- 

 mots had been awakened by the sound of our footsteps, 

 but on our approach their sentinels gave the alarm, and 

 decamped towards the nearest openings to seek shelter 

 with their comrades. The latter, warily maintaining their 

 position at the mouth of their burrows, filled the air with 

 a peculiar yelping; and then, after engaging in some 

 fantastic capers, disappeared each into his respective 

 abode. 



The " village of prairie dogs " before my eyes occupied 

 an area of about twenty acres. Everywhere the ground 

 was mined, and opened up, and covered with hard conical 

 masses which bore witness to the assiduous subterranean 

 labour of these rodents. I sounded the depth of several 

 of the holes with my ramrod ; but they ran into such intri- 

 cacies that I could not reach a single inhabitant. 



There was but one resource left, if I wished to secure a 

 full and undisturbed view of the marmots; namely, to 

 conceal myself, and wait patiently until their mistrust had 

 given place to confidence. Nature favoured my purpose ; 

 for on the borders of the " village," and in a hollow of 

 the valley, grew a clump of dwarf cedars, the tufted 



