HIGHWAYS OF GROUND-SQUIRREL TOWN
Almost as crooked as the streets of London town, aren't they? And as hard to find one's way about in—unless, of course, one were a ground-squirrel. This is the burrow of a Richardson ground-squirrel sketched by Thompson Seton, near Whitewater, Manitoba.
Another member of the marmot family who is very fond of good company is the prairie-dog. There may be thousands in a prairie-dog town. Each little prairie-dog home has in front of it a mound something like an Eskimo's hut. The prairie-dogs make these mounds in digging out their burrows. They pile the dirt right at the front door. This may not look neat to us, but you'll see it's just the thing—this dirt pile—when you know what the prairie-dog does with it. He uses it as a watch-tower.
When, from this watch-tower, he spies certain people he doesn't want to meet, you ought to see how quickly he can make for his front door and into the house! The times are still lawless where the prairie-dog lives, and he has to be on the lookout all the while for coyotes, for foxes, for badgers, for the black-footed ferret and the old gray wolf; to say nothing of hawks and brown owls.
SUCH NEAT CHAMBERMAIDS!
The prairie-dogs like sandy or gravelly soil for their homes, and in making them they do a lot of ploughing. And besides they supply this same soil with a great deal of humus—the grass that they use for bedding. They're very particular about changing their beds every day; always clearing out the old bedding and putting in new. They do this along about sundown. You can see them do it right in New York City, for there is a flourishing colony of them at the zoo.
THIS MUST BE A PLEASANT DAY