THE FAUNA OF THE PRAIRIES. 5 
States being found throughout nearly the whole continent, they 
are dependent for shelter upon the forests, or the caverns here and 
there afforded by a somewhat broken country. On the prairies 
they are hence primitively few in number, in respect to individ- 
uals, and locally restricted, forming no important element in the 
fauna. As settlements increase, they soon multiply and become 
more uniformly distributed, the outbuildings of the farms afford- 
ing them their required shelter. 
The feline and ursine Carnivora, as the Bay Lynx (Lynx rufus), 
the Panther (felis concolor Linn.), and the bear, are likewise rare 
on the prairies, as are also apparently the weasels. But the 
skunks, minks, foxes and wolves, being less dependent on a for- 
est shelter, not only maintain their relative abundance, but, 
through the addition of a few strictly prairie species, are repre- 
sented in more than their usual ratio at the East. Two species of 
the Western Canide, the Prairie Wolf (Canis latrans Say), and the 
Swift or Kit Fox (Vulpes fulvus Aud. and Bach.), here make their 
first appearance, as does also the Badger (Taxidea Americana 
Waterh.) and, especially at the southward, the little Striped Skunk 
(Mephitis bicolor Gray). * 
The luxuriant and highly nutritious prairie grasses afford am- 
ple sustenance to the Herbivora, and in addition to the common 
Deer of the East (Cervus Virginianus Bodd.) the prairies were 
once preéminently the home of the elk and the buffalo, which 
have but recently been driven beyond the Missouri. 
Of the Rodents, one or two species only are known to disappear 
near the prairie border. These are the little Chickaree, or Red 
Squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius Pallas), which is to a great extent a 
northern and. a pine-wood species, and the Woodchuck (Arctomys 
monax Gmel.), which seems to be almost unknown much to the * 
westward of the Mississippi. A Vesper Mouse (Hesperomys Michi- 
ganensis Wag.), the Mississippi Fox Squirrel (Sciurus Ludovicianus 
Custis), —the latter, of course, a woodland species—two Ground 
Squirrels (Spermophilus tridecem-lineatus Aud. and Bach., and S. 
Franklini Rich.), and the Pouched Gopher (Geomys bursarius 
ich.),— a singular and strictly prairie animal—add at least five 
* This fae has but recently been made known as an inhabitant of a bk 
(see AMERICAN NATURALIST, Vol. IV, p. 376, August, 1870), whence the writer 
ceived two skins of this animal from Professor H. W. Parker, of Grinnell. The ee 
has also recently learned of its occurrence as a rather common species in Missouri 
and in Southern Ilinois 
. 
