= 
Pe A-R-L ESS. MAR M:O'T. 
Hift. Quad. N° 263.—Smellie, viii. 234. 
ARMOT. Without ears: face cinereous: back, and hind 
part-of the head, of a light yellowith brown; fometimes 
fpotted diftinétly with white, at others undulated with grey: belly 
and legs of a yellowifh white: tail about four inches and a half long. 
Length, from nofe to tail, about nine and a half. But there is a 
pygmy variety wholly yellow, and with a fhort tail, frequent near 
othe falt lakes, between the mouths of the Yaé and the Femba. 
Inhabits Bohemia, Auftria, and Hungary, and in the Ruffian empire ; 
begins to be common about the Occa, eaft of Mofcow ; extends over 
all the temperate and open parts of Sidiria, and about Fakut/R, and in 
Kamtfchatka. t is alfo on the ifland of Kadjak, and was feen in great 
numbers by Steer on Schamagin’s ifles, almoft clofe on the fhore of 
North America, which give it place in this part of the work. 
They burrow, and fink the pipes to their retreats obliquely, and 
then winding ; and at the end is an arched oblong chamber, a foot in 
diameter, ftrewed with dried grafs. ‘he entrances, or pipes, of the 
males are of greater, and thofe of the females of leffer, diameters. 
Towards winter they make a new pipe to their neft, but that only 
reaches to the turf; and with the earth which is taken out they fill 
up the fummer pipe. 
They live entirely in a ftate of folitude, unlefs in the amorous 
feafon, when the females are found in the fame burrows with the 
males; but they bring forth in their own burrows, and by that 
means prevent the males from deftroying the young, as they cannot 
enter by reafon ef the narrownefs of the pipes, the males being 
fuperior in fize to their mates. They fleep all night; but in the 
morning quit their holes, efpecially in fine weather, and feed and 
fport till approach of night. If the males approach one another, 
they fight fharply. The females often fet up a very fharp whiftle ; 
the males are, for the moft part, filent. At the fight of a man, they 
QQ inftantly 
113 
47. EAR-LESSé 
Manners. 
