ANIMALS. S-ll 



take up a space of ten or twelve feet iri diameter. These ani- 

 mals furnish their store-houses with dry corn, well cleaned ; 

 they also lay in corn in the ear, and beans and peas in the pod. 

 These, when occasion requires, they afterwards separate, carry- 

 ing out the pods and empty ears by their oblique passage. They 

 usually begin to lay in at the latter end of August ; and, as each 

 magazine is filled, they carefully cover up the mouth with earth, 

 and that so neatly that it is no easy matter to discover where the 

 earth has been removed. The only means of finding out their 

 retreats are, therefore, to observe the oblique entrance, which 

 generally has a small quantity of earth before it; and this, 

 though often several yards from their perpendicular retreat, leads 

 those who are skilled in the search to make the discover)'. 

 Many German peasants are known to make a livelihood by find- 

 ing out and biinging off their hoards, which, in a fruitful season, 

 often furnish two bushels of good grain in each apartment- 

 Like most others of the rat kind, they produce twice or thrice 

 a year, and bring five or six at a time. Some years they appear 

 in alarming numbers, at other times they are not so plentiful. 

 The moist seasons assist their propagation ; and it often hap- 

 pens on such years that their devastations produce a famine all 

 over the country. Happily, however, for mankind, these, like 

 the rest of their kind, destroy each other ; and of two that Mr 

 BufTon kept in a cage, male and female, the latter killed and 

 devoured the former. As to the rest, their fur is considered as 

 very valuable^ the natives are invited by rewards to destroy 

 them ; and the weasel kind seconds the wishes of government 

 with great success. Although they are usually found brown on 

 the back and white on the belly, yet many of them are observed 

 to be gray ; which may probably arise from the difl'erence of 

 age. 



THE LEJUNG. 



Having considered various kinds of these noxious little ani- 

 mals that elude the indignation of mankind, and subsist by their 

 number, not their strength, we coine to a species more bold, 

 more dangerous, and more numerous than any of the former. 

 Tlie leniing, which is a native of Srandinavia, is often seen to 

 y.rdi- down in myriads from the noithcrn mountains, and, like a 



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