20 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
In this zone he finds ample dwelling places 
under the surface between the rocks of slides 
and moraines. 
Conies appear to live in rock-walled, rock- 
floored dens. I have not seen a cony den in 
earth matter. With few exceptions all dens 
seen were among the boulders of moraines or 
the jumbled rocks of slides. Both these rock 
masses are comparatively free of earthy mat- 
ter. Dens are, for the most part, ready-made. 
About all the cony has to do is to find the den 
and take possession. 
In the remains of a caved moraine I saw parts 
of a number of cony dens exposed. The dens 
simply were a series of irregularly connected 
spaces between the boulders and rock chunks 
of the moraine. Each cony appears to have 
a number of spaces for sleeping, hay-stacking, 
and possibly for exercise. One cony had a 
series of connected rooms, enough almost for 
a cliff-dweller city. One of these rooms was 
filled with hay, and in three others were thin 
nests of hay. 
These dens are not free from danger. Occa- 
sionally an under-cutting stream causes a mo- 
rainal deposit to collapse. Snowslides may cover 
a moraine deeply with a deposit of snow and 
this in melting sends down streams of water; 
the roof over cony rooms leaks badly; he vacates. 
