THE PRAIRIE DOG, OR WISH-TON-WISH. 



601 



fore-paws. Another and another are similarly treated, and taking a fourth nut be- 

 tween its teeth, the Hackee dives into its burrow, packs away its treasures methodi- 

 cally, and then returns for another cargo. It is rather curious that it always carries 

 four nuts at each journey. As the little creature goes along with its cheek-pouches 

 distended to their utmost limits it has the most ludicrous aspect imaginable, its cheeks 

 prodigiously swelled, and laboring most truly under an embarrassment of riches. 



The Hackee moves into its winter quarters early in November, and, excepting oc- 

 casional reappearance whenever the sun happens to shine with peculiar warmth, is not 

 seen again until the beginning of spring. The young are produced in May, and there 

 is generally a second brood in August. Their number is about four or five. The 

 male Hackee is rather a pugnacious animal, and it is said that during their combats 

 their tails are apt to snap asunder from the violence of their movements. It is un- 



GROUND-SQUIRREL, OR HACKEE. Tamlas Lystert. 



doubtedly true that those members are wonderfully brittle, but whether they undergo 

 such spontaneous amputation is not so certain. 



Pretty as it is, and graceful as are its movements, it hardly repays the trouble of 

 keeping it in a domesticated state ; for its temper is very uncertain, and it is generally 

 sullen towards its keeper. Although the food of the Hackee is mostly of a vegetable 

 character, it is occasionally diversified with other substances ; for the Chipping Squirrel, 

 like his English relative, is occasionally carnivorous in his appetite. One of these animals 

 was detected in the very act of robbing a bird's nest and devouring the callow young. 



BETWEEN the squirrels and the marmots there are one or two intermediate links, one 

 of which has already been noticed in Tamias, and another is found in the genus 

 Spermophilus, to which the PRAIRIE DOG belongs. 



The Prairie Dog, as it is popularly called, is found in very great plenty along the course 

 of the Missouri and its tributaries, and also near the River Platte. It congregates to- 

 gether in vast numbers in certain spots where the soil is favorable to its subterranean 

 habits of life and the vegetation is. sufficiently luxuriant to afford it nourishment. The 

 color of this animal is a reddish-brown upon the back, mixed with gray and black in a 

 rather vague manner. The abdomen and throat are grayish-white, and the short tail is 

 clothed for the first half of its length with hair of the same tint as that of the body, and 

 for the remaining half is covered with deep blackish-brown hair forming a kind of brush. 



