322 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



are all alike, and tlioir location is uniformly on a level or desolate prairie ■without 

 timber. * * * 



The prairie dog of the American prairies is undoubtedly a variety of the marmot, 

 and probably not unlike those which inhabit the vast steppes of Asia. It bears no 

 resemblance to any variety of dogs, except in the sound of its voice, when excited by 

 the approach of danger, which is something like that of a very small dog, and still 

 much more resembling the barking of a gray squirrel. 



The size of these curious little animals is not far from that of a very large rat, and 

 they are not unlike iu their appearance. As I have said, their burrows are uniformly 

 built in a lonely desert, and away both from the proximity of timber and water. 

 Each individual, or each family, dig their hole iu the prairie to the depth of 8 or 10 

 feet, throwing up the dirt from each excavation in a little pile in the form of a cone, 

 which forms the only elevation for them to ascend, where they sit to bark and chat- 

 ter when an enemy is approaching their village. These villages are sometimes of 

 several miles in extent, containing (I would almost say) myriads of their excavations 

 and little dirt hillocks, and to the ears of their visitors the din of their barkings is too 

 confused and too peculiar to be described. 



In the present instance we made many endeavors to shoot them, but found our 

 efforls to be entirely in vain. As we were approaching them at a distance, each one 

 seemed to be perched up on his hind feet on his appropriate domicile, with a signifi- 

 cant jerk of his tail at every bark, positively disputing our right of approach. I made 

 several attempts to get near enough to "draw a bead" upon one of them, and just 

 before I was ready to fire (and as if they knew the utmost limits of their safety) they 

 sprang down into their holes, and, instantly turning their bodies, showed their ears 

 and the ends of their noses as they were peeping out at me, which position they would 

 hold until the shortness of the distance subjected their scalps to danger again from 

 the aim of a rifle, when they instantly disappeared from our sight, and all was silence 

 thereafter about their premises as I passed them over, until I had so far advanced by 

 them that their ears were again discovered, and at length themselves, at full length, 

 perched on the tops of their little hillocks and threatening as before, thus gradually 

 sinking and rising like a wave before and behind me. 



The holes leading down to their burrows are 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and run 

 down nearly perpendicular, where they undoubtedly communicate into something 

 like a subterraneous city (as I have formerly learned from fruitless endeavors to dig 

 them out), undermined and vaulted, by which means they can travel for a great dis- 

 tance under the ground without danger from pursuit. 



Their food is simply the grass in the immediate vicinity of their burrows, which is 

 cut close to the ground by their flat, shovel teeth, and, as they sometimes live 20 miles 

 from any watei", it is to be supposed that they get moisture enough from the dew on 

 the grass, on which they feed chiefly at night, or that (as is generally suiipo&ed) they 

 sink wells from their underground habitations, by which they descend low enough to 

 get their supply. In the winter they are for several months invisible, existing un- 

 doubtedly in a torpid state, as they certainly lay by no food for that season, nor can 

 they procure any. These curious little animals belong to almost every latitude in the 

 vast plains of prairie in North America, and their villages, which I have sometimes 

 encountered in my travels, have compelled my party to ride several miles out of our 

 way to get by them, for their burrows are generally within a few feet of each other, 

 and dangerous to the feet and the limbs of our horses. 



463. Smoking Horses, a curious custom of the Sacs and Foxes. Foxes going to 

 war come to the Sacks to beg for horses ; they sit in a circle and smoke, 

 and the young men ride around them and cut their shoulders with their 

 whips until the blood runs, then dismount and present a horse. Painted 

 in 1836, at Eock Island. 



(Plate No. 292, page 213, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



