PRAIRIE-DOGS 157 
easily penetrates the burrows, and against whose 
ferocity and skill the squirrels can make little defense. 
‘* All these conditions together served in the natural 
state of things to hold the prairie-dogs in check, but 
the changes brought about by civilization have been so 
favorable to these little animals, by the reduction of 
their enemies on the one hand, and the augmentation 
on the other hand of their food supplies by the farm- 
ers’ plantations of meadow grass, alfalfa, and grain, 
that they have increased into a very serious pest.’’ 
A serious pest-problem. How serious this 
pest has become in the grazing regions of 
western. Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, may be 
inferred from the information furnished by 
Vernon Bailey in his report upon the condi- 
‘tions in Texas in 1905. . 
‘‘Usually,’’ he states, ‘‘they are found in scattered 
colonies, or ‘dog-towns,’ varying in extent from a 
few acres to a few square miles, but over an extensive 
area lying just east of the Staked Plains they cover 
the country in an almost continuous and thickly in- 
habited dog-town, extending from San Angelo north 
to Clarendon in a strip approximately 100 miles wide 
by 250 miles long. Adding to this area of about 25,- 
000 square miles the other areas covered by them, 
they cover approximately 90,000 square miles of the 
State, wholly within the grazing district. It has been 
roughly estimated that the 25,000-square-miles colony 
contains 400,000,000 prairie-dogs. If the remaining 
