THE PRAIRIE-" DOG” 
77 
Some plainsmen claim that these interesting 
little creatures are able to locate their towns 
away from streams because they burrow down 
until they strike water, but Dr. Merriam points 
out the fact that in some regions they live where 
the nearest veins of artesian- well water are 1,000 
feet below the surface. As a matter of fact 
they can live without drinking. 
The Prairie-" Dog ” is at home — where not 
exterminated by poisoned wheat put into his 
burrow — from Texas, New Mexico and Arizona 
northward to the Canadian boundary, and on 
the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in 
Utah and Colorado. It is most abundant in 
Montana, Wyoming and western Kansas. One 
of the largest Prairie-" Dog ” towns yet re- 
ported begins in Trego County, Kansas, five 
miles west of the one-hunclredth meridian, and 
extends along the divide north of the Smoky 
Hill River, practically without a break, to Colo- 
rado, a total distance of about one hundred 
miles. This town varies in width from half a 
mile to five miles, and on the top of the divide 
the nearest water is believed to be 350 feet below 
the surface. (Arthur B. Baker.) 
It is now (1903) reported that because of the 
wholesale destruction of wolves and foxes, the 
enormous increase of Prairie-" Dogs” in Kansas, 
Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado has become a 
genuine scourge to farmers and cattlemen. The 
number of “Dogs” in that region is now esti- 
mated at several millions, and a general cam- 
paign against them has been begun. The meth- 
od employed for their destruction is a spoonful 
of poisoned wheat placed in the mouth of each 
burrow. Beyond doubt, this will soon reduce 
their numbers to reasonable limits. 
When he is not too numerous, I am the friend 
of the Prairie- 11 Dog. ” He is as bright and cheer- 
ful as the day is long, and he enlivens many a 
dreary landscape, but at the same time he often 
changes fine, grass-covered cattle ranges into 
dreary wastes, and causes great losses to cat- 
tle owners. I hope, however, that he will be 
tolerated at least to the extent that systematic 
destruction will stop short of extermination. 
It is not true that the Prairie-" Dog ” lives in 
peace and harmony in the same burrow with the 
rattlesnake and burrowing owl. The snakes 
would make short work of the young Prairie- 
“ Dogs,” and the latter would quickly kill the 
owl ! It is safe to surmise that when a deadly 
and quarrelsome rattler invades the home of a 
Prairie-" Dog ” family, the latter speedily seeks 
a home elsewhere. The burrowing owl is in the 
habit of taking refuge in abojwloned burrows, 
and nesting in them, to save the labor of dig- 
ging a burrow for itself. In the Philadelphia 
Zoological Garden Mr. A. E. Brown once tried 
the experiment of associating burrowing owls 
and Prairie-" Dogs.” The owls were immedi- 
ately killed and torn to pieces by the “ Dogs.” 
A Prairie-" Dog ’’ Burrow. 
At last a Prairie-" Dog ” burrow has been 
completely exposed by digging, and reported 
upon in full in one of the publications of 
the Biological Survey. In the “Yearbook of 
the Department of Agriculture” for 1991, Dr. 
C. Hart Merriam publishes a valuable paper on 
“The Prairie-Dog of the Great Plains,” 
which contains the following illustrated descrip- 
tion : 
“The holes go down for some distance at a 
very steep angle and then turn at nearly a right 
angle and continue horizontally, rising some- 
what toward the end, The nests are in side 
chambers connecting with the horizontal part 
of the burrow, and usually, if not always, at a 
somewhat higher level. (See H in figure.) 
Recently, at Alma, Nebraska, W. H. Osgood 
dug out a burrow, of which he made a careful 
diagram, accompanied by measurements. 
“In this case the burrow went down nearly 
vertically to a depth of 14^ feet below the surface, 
when it turned abruptly and became horizontal 
as shown in the diagram. The horizontal part 
was 134 feet in length. One-third of the hori- 
zontal part (the terminal 4 feet, F) and two old 
nests and passageways (E) were plugged with 
black earth brought in from the surface layer, 
which was very different from the light-colored 
clayey earth in which the greater part of the 
burrow lay. 
“Four or five feet below the entrance was a 
diverticulum, or short side passage (G), probably 
used as a place in which to turn around when 
the animals come back to take a look at the in- 
truder before finally disappearing in the bot- 
toms of their burrows. It is also used, appar- 
ently, as a resting-place where they bark and 
scold after retreating from the mouths of the 
