226 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



sidered happy if allowed only the sad alleviation of com- 

 plaint. 



Erxleben was of opinion that the Ogotone, or Gray-Pika, 

 was the same as the species last mentioned ; Pallas, how- 

 ever, has sufficiently marked its specific characters as dis- 

 tinct from that, as well as from the Sailgan or Dwarf Pika, 

 the Calling Hare of Pennant. It measures little more than 

 six inches in length, and is of brownish-gray colour above, 

 and white underneath. 



The habits of the several species of this newly-formed 

 sub-genus of our author, tend to the same end, but by 

 different means : their providence and industry is vari- 

 ously employed. The Ogotone, so called by the Mongole 

 Tartars, is very common in their deserts, and beyond Lake 

 Baikal, It is principally in the heaps of stones lying here 

 and there, that these animals are found ; they select a sandy 

 soil, for the facility of digging deep burrows, having two 

 or three entrances, and the bottom well furnished with a 

 thick and soft bed of leaves. The vicinity of these bur- 

 rows is easily found by the dung of the animals heaped 

 together. In winter, when they quit the earth less fre- 

 quently, similar heaps are found deposited in one part of 

 the burrow. 



These animals wander about commonly during the night, 

 and seek principally in the defiles of the mountains, and 

 the banks of rivers, the tenderest bark, and young shoots. 

 In spring, they graze on the scanty herbage growing on the 

 sand, and they transport so large a quantity of this to their 

 retreats, that the galleries of the burrows are almost stopped 

 by it. The inhabitants consider this as a sign of an ap- 

 proaching storm. 



The same plants compose the winter reserves of these 

 animals ; but these are not formed within the burrows, for 

 want apparently of space. Numerous small heaps of about 

 afoot in height, and of an hemispherical form, may be seen 



