MAMMALS THAT GNAW. 93 



of all marmots. During the daytime they may be seen playincr around their 

 burrows, at the mouths of wliich they sit upright when the feast alarmed. 

 In this situation, the moment they catch sight of a suspicious object, they 

 throw themselves down their burrows, which are often situated at the root 

 of a rhubarb plant, with the well-known shrill scream, at the sound of which 

 any other aninjal that may be in the vicinity immediately taices alarm. It is 

 almost superfluous to observe that, in order to secure them when thus sitting, 

 it is necessary to shoot marmots dead ; for, even with the slightest kick left 

 in them, they will often manage to tumble into their holes before they cm 

 be seized. When disturbed for the first time, they will usually reappear 

 after a short interval ; but after a second fright they generally sulk, and 

 seldom show again. Wishing to secure a number of skins for rugs, the 

 writer and his party, after much toil, once succeeded in turning a small 

 rivulet into a marmot warren on one of the plateaus of Little Tibet, but, to 

 their dismay, were unable to "bolt " a single marmot— the whole colony pre- 

 ferring to perish miserably by drowning in their burrows rather than face 

 their foes in the open. 



In Europe there occur two species of marmot — namely, the Alpine marmot 

 (j4. marmutta) and the somewhat smaller bobac (^-1. hobac). The former is an 

 exclusively European form, only found in the three disconnected mountain 

 chains of the Pyrenees, Alps, and Carpathians, at elevations varying be- 

 tween 5,000 and 1,000 feet, where it meets with a climate suitable to its exist- 

 ence. The second species, in which the head and body measure about 

 15 inches in length, has its western limit on the German frontier, and thence 

 ranges eastward through Oalicia and Poland, right across the steppes of 

 Southern Russia, and thence to Amur, Kamschatka, and Siberia — the climate 

 of these regions being sufficiently rigorous to admit of the existence of these 

 animals at ordinary elevations. Jt is noteworthy that marmots do not extend 

 to the north-westward either into Lapland or the Scandinavian peninsula, 

 where the country does not present the character of the Russian steppes, 

 which in summer are scorched by a burning heat, and in winter form a. track- 

 less expanse of snow. Tlie southern limits of the bobac do not appear to be 

 yet definitely known. When, however, we reach the mountains of Yarkand 

 and other parts of Turkestan, and thence proceed southwards to the northern 

 districts of Ladak in Western Tibet, we meet with a very similar, although 

 somewhat larger, short-tailed species known as the Himalayan marmot 

 {A. himalayaims), the range of which appears to extend eastward into Tibet 

 proper, where this species has been described under other names. The 

 Himalayan marmot is another species which, at all events in the southern 

 portion of its range, can only find a suitable climate at great elevations, the 

 height at which it is usually found in Ladak and Turkestan varying between 

 12,000 feet and something over 17,000 feet. Another species is also met 

 with in the neighbourhood of Yarkand and the Pamir, at elevations of about 

 13,000 feet, known as the golden marmot (A. aureus), and is distinguished 

 from the last by its more golden colour, and shorter and thicker tail. 

 Examples of this species were also obtained in Turkestan during Przewalski's 

 expeditions. To the souch-wcst the writer, when crossing the elevated 

 plateau of Deosai, or "Devil's Plains," situated between the town of Skardo 

 on the Indus in A^'estern Tibet and the mountains north of Kashmir, the 

 elevation of which is between 12,500 feet and 13,000 feet, found marmots 

 exceedingly abundant, although he was unable to determine to wliich of the 

 two preceding species they belonged, or whether they were more nearly 



