[Illustration: _By permission of the New York Zoological Society._
A most characteristic picture. It shows the prairie-dogs' method of holding their food while they eat, or cutting up grass to make their beds.]
The suslik was once found in England; its remains, with those of other steppe animals, are found in the river gravels and brick earth in the London basin. The prairie-dogs form a kind of connecting-link between the susliks and the true marmots. They have short ears, short tails, rounded bodies, and possess great powers of digging. When a prairie-dog has nothing better to do, it usually spends its time either in digging holes or in cutting up grass or anything handy to make its bed with. Young prairie-dogs are not so large as a mouse when born. The adult animals feed almost entirely on grass and weeds in their wild state; they seem quite independent of water, and able to live in the driest places.
The ALPINE MARMOT is a much larger species than the prairie-dog. It lives on the Alps just below the line of perpetual snow. From five to fifteen marmots combine in colonies, dig very deep holes, and, like the prairie-dogs, carefully line them with grass; they also store up dry grass for food. In autumn they grow very fat, and are then dug out of the burrows by the mountaineers for food. Young marmots used to be tamed and carried about by the Savoyard boys, but this practice is now rare. The monkey is probably more attractive to the public than the fat and sleepy marmot. Marmots are about the size of a rabbit, and have close iron-grey fur.
Tschudi, the naturalist of the Alps, says of the marmots that they are the only mammal which inhabits the region of the snows. No other warm-blooded quadrupeds live at such an altitude. In spring, when the lower snows melt, there are generally small pieces of short turf near their holes, as well as great rocks, precipices, and stones. Here they make their burrows, outside which they feed, with a sentinel always posted to warn them of the approach of the eagle or lammergeir. The young marmots, from four to six in number, are born in June. When they first appear at the mouth of the holes, they are bluish grey; later the fur gains a brownish tint. The burrows are usually at a height of not less than 7,000 or 8,000 feet. Winter comes on apace. By the end of autumn the ground is already covered with snow, and the marmots retire to sleep through the long winter. As they do not become torpid for some time, they require food when there is none accessible; this they store up in the form of dried grass, which they cut in August, and leave outside their burrows for a time to be turned into hay.