228 THE PRAIRIE DOG. 
The bighorn is quite celebrated for its agi- 
lity, and its habit of secluding itself among the 
most inaccessible mountain crags. It seems 
to delight in perching and capering upon the 
very verge of the most frightful precipices and 
overhanging cliffs, and in skipping from rock 
to rock, regardless of the yawning chasms, 
hundreds of feet in depth, which intervene. 
In fact, when pursued, it does not hesitate, as 
I have been assured, to leap from a cliff into 
a valley a hundred or more feet below, where, 
lighting upon its huge horns, it springs to its 
feet uninjured ; for the neck is so thick and 
strong as to support the greatest shock the 
animal’s weight can bring upon it. Being 
exceedingly timorous, it rarely descends to 
the valleys, but feeds and sleeps about such 
craggy fastnesses as are inaccessible to the 
wolves and other animals of prey. This ani- 
mal seems greatly to resemble the moufflon 
of Buffon, in peich figure and horns, but the 
in habits. 
But of all the prairie animals, by far the 
most curious, and by no means the least cele- 
brated, is the little prairie dog. This singular 
quadruped is but little larger than a common 
squirrel, its body being nearly a foot long, 
with a tail of three or four inches. The color 
ranges from brown to a dirty yellow. The 
flesh, though often eaten by travellers, is not 
esteemed savory. It was denominated the 
‘barking squirrel,’ the ‘prairie ground-squir- 
rel,’ ete., by early explorers, with much more - 
apparent propriety than the present establish- 
