THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
like birds in tremendous leaps, and at such a rate that a swift 
horse cannot overtake them. The pretty Egyptian jerboas, 
which are often tamed by the Arabs into the most charming 
of pets, have only three toes on the hind feet, but the larger 
number of species have five toes; for example, the big alag- 
daga, everywhere seen in Turkestan, and an important source 
of food to the Kirghiz of the Steppes. All the jerboas live in 
companies which unite to make a network of underground tun- 
nels as a permanent home. 
A very near relative of these is our North American jump- 
ing-mouse, but it dwells in the woods and fields, not in deserts, 
and is not gregarious. Late in summer this mouse weaves a 
globular ball of grass blades, and occupies it with his mate 
until cold weather approaches, when the pair find a deep 
cranny among rocks or dig a hole a little way into the ground, 
and there, in a snug bed of shredded bark, leaves, and so forth, 
go sound asleep with the first severe frost, and never wake up 
before May day. None of our mammals is so deep a winter 
sleeper. The several species are much alike in color, — dark 
along the back, reddish yellow on the flanks, and whitish 
underneath. 
In a neighboring family are grouped another lot of North 
American mice, — the agile, graceful pocket mice, kangaroo 
Kangaroo ats and their fellows, which abound in the arid 
Bis Southwest. The kangaroo rats would surely at- 
tract an artist, if Seton is a good reporter. 
“Just the loveliest, daintiest, fawn-brown little creature that I had ever 
seen in fur — large beautiful eyes like a fawn’s —- No! not like a fawn’s, 
for no fawn that ever lived had such wonderfully innocent orbs of liquid 
brown, ears like thinnest shells of the sea, showing the pink veins’ flood of 
hfe. His hind feet were large and strong; but his fore feet — his hands, I 
mean, were the tiniest of the tiny — pinky white, and rounded and dim- 
pled, just like a baby’s, only whiter and smaller than the tip of baby’s finger. 
His throat and breast were snowy white — however does he keep himself 
so sweetly clean in such a land of mud! Down the outside of his brown 
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