The female has from four to six young at a birth, and she has about two litters in a year. The nest for the young is much like that of the rabbit, made of grass and leaves, and placed at the end of a deep burrow. In the winter they only partially hibernate, frequently digging through the snow to eat the bark and lichen from the trees. Their gait when on the ground is very awkward; their broad short feet are not fitted for progression, and they shamble rather than run, and can be easily overtaken. Where a colony of them have resided for any time, the ground becomes literally riddled with holes, and the trees and shrubs die for want of roots. I imagine, from having found abandoned villages, that they wisely emigrate when their resources are exhausted. The Indians esteem their flesh a great luxury, and trap them in a kind of figure-offour trap, set at the mouth of the burrow. I daresay they are as good as a rabbit; still, they have too ratlike an appearance to possess any gastronomic attractions for me. De gustibus non est disputandum.
The Aplodontia has a terrible and untiring enemy in the badger (Taxidea Americana). He is always on the hunt for the poor little miner, digs him out from his hiding-place, and devours him with as much gusto as the Indian. Its geographical range is not very extended, being, as far as I know, confined to a small section of North-western America. I have seen it on the eastern and western slopes of the Cascades, but not on the Rocky Mountains, although it very probably exists there. It is also found at Puget’s Sound, Fort Steilacum, and on the banks of the Sumass and Chilukweyuk rivers, west of the Cascades; on the Nachess Pass, at Astoria and the Dalles, on the Columbia, east of the Cascades.
Feeding entirely on vegetable matter (I never discovered a trace of insect or larvæ remains in the stomach), passing its life principally in dark burrows, and limited, as far as we know at present, to a very narrow section of a barren country, it is hard to imagine what purpose it serves in the great chain of Nature, save it be that of supplying food to the badger, and both food and clothing to the savage; and yet we know that it was fashioned for some specific purpose, if we could but read and rightly interpret the pages of Nature’s wondrous book. If we ask ourselves, Why was this or that made? how seldom can we answer the question! Why did He, who made the world, the sun, and the stars, deck the butterfly’s wing with tiny scales, that by a simple change in arrangement produce patterns beside which the most finished painting is a bungling daub? Why exist those microscopic wonders, (diatoms and infusoria,) formed with shells of purest flint, and of the quaintest devices? Why were these atomies, that tenant every roadside pool, which dance in the sunbeam, and float on the wings of the breeze? Why all the prodigal variety of strange forms crowding the sea, forms more wonderful than the poet’s wildest dreams ever pictured? Who can tell?
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] For full narrative of Apostolos Valerianos, see Samuel Purchase His Pilgrims.
[2] Buckland’s Manual, ‘Salmon Hatching,’ page 24.
[3] Vide Illustration.
[4] Vide Illustration.