Sappers and Miners 



which have perched themselves on the tops of their 

 mounds, ready to give the alarm signal to the rest of the 

 villagers, throughout the hot summer months, are gone, 

 and each prairie dog family has closed its front door and 

 retired to the inmost recesses of its burrow to enjoy a 

 long winter sleep. 



Another expert North American miner is the natty little 

 chipping squirrel, so called on account of its odd little 

 cry. Its burrow is of the most complicated description. 

 For a yard or so it ascends perpendicularly and then turns 

 upwards, winding about in a sinuous manner. At the end 

 of this winding underground pathway there is a chamber 

 which is at once living-room and nursery, for here the 

 mother squirrel constructs her warm, comfortable nest of 

 dried leaves. From the main burrow several galleries 

 are run ; some to serve as means of escape from possible 

 enemies, others to form layers in which the little creature 

 may store up food for some future day. Although the 

 squirrel is a tiny creature, it is an ardent food hoarder, and 

 in one larder were discovered " two quarts of buckwheat, 

 some grass seeds, nearly a peck of acorns, some Indian 

 corn and a quart of braked nuts" (a species of beech- 

 mast). 



The habit of building sinuous tunnels is one not easily 

 explained ; sometimes force of circumstances, in the shape 

 of a large stone or a tree root, will compel a burrowing 

 animal to deviate from its course. Often, however, these 

 animal sappers will make winding burrows when there is 

 nothing apparently to prevent them from going straight 

 ahead. Such a miner is the duckbill of Australia, most 

 anomalous of animals from that land of animal anomalies. 



The duckbill is possessed of a bill like a duck, its name 

 tells us as much, and feet strangely resembling that bird's ; 

 moreover, it lays eggs ; yet withal it is a mammal. As 

 might be guessed from an inspection of its strongly webbed 

 feet, the duckbill is an expert swimmer and as such makes 

 its burrows in the bank of some favoured stream. To 



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