402 SPOR TING A D VENTURES 



conformation of a country, judging by my own experience, as 

 I have found it from the table-like prairies of the forest to the 

 snow-line of the rugged Cascade Range. It must, I infer, 

 partially hibernate during the winter on the higher mountains, 

 but in the valleys, where frosts even are not severe, it remains 

 in an active condition throughout the year. It may be seen 

 out on the Cascade Range as early as March, especially if the 

 weather is fine ; but murky days cause it to keep close to its 

 burrow, no matter whether its habitat is on hill, plain, or 

 plateau. Its fiercest enemy east of the Cascade Range is the 

 pugnacious badger, which pursues it with the greatest perti- 

 nacity, notwithstanding the fact that ground squirrels are 

 exceedingly numerous, and much more easily obtained. The 

 taxidea, like the red man, is, however, an epicure in its own 

 way, and both these products of the American continent evi- 

 dently consider the flesh of the showtl superior to that of any 

 other animal. The meat is certainly tender, and much less 

 rank in taste than that of the wood-hare, while it is more 

 succulent than that of the squirrel. 



Whenever a badger gets among a colony, it plays sad havoc 

 with its members, and destroys them in the very wantonness 

 of its fury, much the same as a terrier would a lot of rats. 

 The result is, that it soon deprives itself of a most savoury 

 bonne louche, and it has then to content itself with sper- 

 mophiles and field-mice. The coyotes, or prairie wolves, also 

 prey on the defenceless rodent ; but it frequently eludes them 

 in its labyrinthine burrows, into which nothing can follow it 

 but the badger. This latter animal being unknown west of 

 the Cascade Range, the showtl lives in comparative security 

 in that division of the Pacific slope, for its greatest foe there, 

 the red man, does not slay it wantonly. 



The Indians of Washington Territory have a tradition that 

 it was the first animal endowed with life, and the source 

 whence sprang the human race the red portion at least, and 

 on this account they pretend to entertain a sort of reverence 

 for it; but that, like several other sentiments which they 

 profess, extends no further than mere expediency, for they 

 kill it whenever they get the opportunity, and devour it with 



