PRAIRIE-DOGS 157 



easily penetrates the burrows, and against whose 

 ferocity and skill the squirrels can make little defense. 

 ' ' All these conditions together served in the natural 

 state of things to hold the prairie-dogs in check, but 

 the changes brought about by civilization have been so 

 favorable to these little animals, by the reduction of 

 their enemies on the one hand, and the augmentation 

 on the other hand of their food supplies by the farm- 

 ers' plantations of meadow grass, alfalfa, and grain, 

 that they have increased into a very serious pest." 



A serious pest-problem. How serious this 

 pest lias become in the grazing regions of 

 western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, may be 

 inferred from the information furnished by 

 Vernon Bailey in his report upon the condi- 

 tions in Texas in 1905. 



"Usually," he states, "they are found in scattered 

 colonies, or 'dog-towns,' varying in extent from a 

 few acres to a few square miles, but over an extensive 

 area lying just east of the Staked Plains they cover 

 the country in an almost continuous and thickly in- 

 habited dog-town, extending from Sari Angelo north 

 to Clarendon in a strip approximately 100 miles wide 

 by 250 miles long. Adding to this area of about 25,- 

 000 square miles the other areas covered by them, 

 they cover approximately 90,000 square miles of the 

 State, wholly within the grazing district. It has been 

 roughly estimated that the 25,000-square-miles colony 

 contains 400,000,000 prairie-dogs. If the remaining 



