320 
PRAIRIE DOG. 
and bushy ; hair on the body, rather coarse ; under-fur, of moderate fine- 
ness. The female has ten mammaj arranged along the sides of the belly. 
COLOUR. 
The hair on the back is, from the roots, for one-third of its length, bluish- 
black, then soiled-white — ^then light-brown ; some of the hairs having 
yellowish-white, and others black, tips. The hairs on the under-surface, 
are at the roots bluish, and for nearly their whole length yellowish-white, 
giving the sides of face, cheeks, chin, and throat, legs, belly, and under- 
surface of tail a yellowish- white colour. Teeth, white ; moustaches and 
eyes, black ; nails, brown. The tail partakes of the colour of the back for 
three-fourths of its length, but is tipped with black, extending one inch 
from the end. 
DIMENSIONS. 
MALE. 
FEMALE. 
Nose to root of tail. 
13 inches 
12i inches. 
“ to end of tail. 
1 6i do 
15f do 
Tail, vertebrse, . . - . 
2S do 
24 do 
“ to end of hair, ... 
3i do 
JMose to anterior canthus, 
li do 
la do 
Height of ear, - . - - 
T6 do 
Te do 
Width between eyes, . - . 
li do 
lA do 
Length of fore-hand, ... 
1/e do 
14 do 
“ of heel and hind-foot 
28 do 
2 do 
Depth of pouch, .... 
S do 
Diameter of ditto, .... 
Feet slightly webbed at base. 
i do 
HABITS. 
The general impression of those persons 
who have 
never seen the 
“Prairie Dog” called by the French Canadians “ petit chien,'^ would be 
far from correct in respect to this little animal, should they incline to con- 
sider it as a small “ dog.” It was probably only owing to the sort of yelp, 
chip, chip, chip, uttered by these marmots, that they were called Prairie 
Dogs, for they do not resemble the genus Canis much more than does a 
common gray squirrel ! 
This noisy spermophile, or marmot, is found in numbers, sometimes 
hundreds of families together, living in burrows on the prairies ; and their 
galleries are so extensive as to render riding among them quite unsafe in 
