MARMOT* 
ble, except brought before a fire, which revives 
them : they lodge in fociety from five to a dozen in 
a chamber: will walk on their hind feet: lift up 
their meat to their mouth with their fore feet, and 
eat it fitting up: bring three or four young at a 
time : are very playfull: when angry, or before a 
ftorm, make a moil ftrange noife ; a whiftle fo loud ' 
and fo acute, as quite to pierce the ear: grow very 
fat about the backs : are fometimes eaten ; but ge¬ 
nerally taken in order to be fhewen, efpecially by 
the Savoyards: grow very foon tame, and will then 
eat any thing: are very fond of milk, which they 
lap, making at the fame time a murmuring noife, 
expreflive of their fatisfadlion : very apt to gnaw 
any cloaths or linnen they find : will bite very hard* 
The inhabitants of Ukraine take them in May and 
June , by pouring water into the holes, which forces 
them into nets placed et the entrance. 
In Chinefe 'Tartary are the propagators of Rhu¬ 
barb * which grows among their burrows: the ma¬ 
nure they leave about the roots contributes to its 
increafe ; and the loofe foil they fling up, proves a 
bed for the ripe feed; which, if fcattered among the 
long grafs, perifhes without ever being able to reach, 
the ground. 
* Bell’s Travels, I. 337. 
Bahama 
