1688 Quadrupeds. 



remains may be discovered, and produce theories and conjectures as to the cause of the 

 destruction that will greatly interest mankind, or whatever kind may then exist, until 

 some Buckland redivivus, finding the barb of an arrow in the rib of one of them, will, 

 with the same power of genius and fancy that once illuminated the obscurities of the 

 Kirkdale cave, people these prairies over again with butchering Indians and flying buf- 

 faloes. It was impossible to ride amongst these skeletons without thinking of the con- 

 dition of the Indians, who are now paying for their folly in unprofitably destroying and 

 frightening the buffaloes away, by having now to perform the most tedious journies in 

 the winter, to procure meat for the subsistence of their families." — Featherstonhaugh's 

 Canoe Voyage. 



Habits of the Antelope. — " Whilst I was waiting the arrival of the charette, I was 

 exceedingly amused with the movements of one of those antelopes which rove over 

 these prairies. The graceful creature came bounding on, in a singularly elastic man- 

 ner, towards the place where the mare was browsing, and where I was lying on the grass. 

 Sometimes it reared itself up on its hind-legs to get a good look at us, and then, if I 

 lifted up my head, would wheel round and fly away with surprising speed ; then again 

 it would return and repeat its elegant motions. These beautiful creatures often be- 

 come the victims of their curiosity ; for when the hunter conceals himself behind a 

 knoll, and waves a piece of cloth tied to a stick, so insatiable is their propensity, that 

 they frequently approach too near for their own safety. This antelope, and some 

 flocks of brown plover, were the only animals I saw during this ride." — Id. 



Prairie Dogs. — " At 3 p.m., we stopped for the men to dine at a slope on the right 

 bank, up which I ascended, and after struggling for one hundred yards through the 

 matted bushes, entangled with wild peas and vines, I reached the top, and found a very 

 spacious prairie, thrown up into myriads of hills, made by what have been called 

 prairie dogs. These little interesting animals have been called so probably from the 

 indistinct sort of barking they make, for they have no resemblance to dogs, either in 

 their appearance or habits. In size they are like a large rat, about ten inches long, 

 with a reddish-green fur, and sit upon their hind legs, like a squirrel, on the top of the 

 hillocks they have thrown up ; from whence, on the approach of danger, they quickly 

 retreat into their burrows. They are short-legged, and have sharp crooked nails to 

 their anterior feet, for the purpose of burrowing. Nature has curiously provided them 

 with deep pouches, opening externally from their cheeks, and enlarging the sides of 

 the head and neck. The first specimen which was produced had these pouches turned 

 inside out, as though the animal had a bag on each side of the head, and in this 

 odd manner it is figured in the ' Linnasan Transactions,' and in Shaw, vol. ii., 

 Raffinesque gave it the elegant name of Geomys, and Shaw, of Mus bursarius." 

 — Id. 



The Musk-Rat. — " September 24th. This being the season for musk-rats, as the 

 traders call them, they (the Indians) had taken an immense number of them, which 

 they had skinned, and the carcasses, which they are very fond of, were drying on sticks 

 over a slow fire. In twenty days they had taken 1200 of these animals. Some of the 

 traders at Prairie du Chien told me that these creatures increase in number now that 

 the foxes and other animals are diminishing. The sinkepay, as the Nacotahs call the 

 muskquash, or musk-rat of the traders, is much larger than the common rat ; it has 

 a reddish-gray fur, resembling that of the beaver, and in common with that animal 

 constructs itself a conical mud house, where the situation admits of it, above the sur- 

 face of any body of water where a root grows, which it subsists on during the winter, 



