426 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



in hunting them with greyhounds. In some localities in Cali- 

 fornia and Colorado these animals constitute a veritable pest to 

 the agriculturists, and of recent years thousands of them have 

 been destroyed in " drives," where many hunters have surrounded 

 them and driven them into great pens or corrals to be subse- 

 quently killed by the hundreds. 



Another family of rodents represented in the United States is 

 the Lagomyidce or the Pikas. It contains but the one genus, and 

 our fauna, but the one species, Lagomys princeps, the North Amer- 

 ican Pika, or Little Chief Hare. This animal I have never suc- 

 ceeded in taking, though on numerous occasions in the Big Horn 

 Mountains of Wyoming, I have heard its call. It seemed gener- 

 ally to come out on a pile of loose stones somewhere on the 

 mountain side, most often toward sunset, and then utter a pe- 

 culiar sharp little whistle of its own. I have seen old hunters 

 deceived by this call, as at certain distances it does not sound 

 very unlike the bleating of a Mountain sheep. Personally, I 

 know but little about this particular rodent, but know it to be a 

 vegetable feeder, and that there still remains much to be discov- 

 ered in reference to its habits. Lagomys is derived from two words 

 signifying a hare-mouse, and the few species in existence in other 

 parts of the world are all small animals. Other interesting ani- 

 mals of our Kodentia are the Porcupines, and of these we have at 

 least two good subspecies in the United States, and they present 

 many interesting habits for study. 



