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The striped marmots crept out of their holes, stood erect on their hind legs, and filled the steppe with their whistle. The whirr of the grasshoppers had become more distinctly audible. Sometimes the cry of the swan was heard from some distant lake, ringing through the air like a silver trumpet.
For two hundred miles we rushed over the same plains which, a few months earlier, we had laboriously crossed with our caravan. Every spot was pregnant with delightful memories. At this well we had camped for a week and hunted antelope; in that ragged mass of rocks we had killed a wolf; out on the Turin plain we had trapped twenty-six marmots in an enormous colony.
Before leaving this wondrous spot we inspected some plump marmots, who were leading a happy life of ease and plenty in a large cage erected in front of the hotel; then in absolutely perfect weather we mounted the Grimsel road.
Now I guess this is enough about the Squirrel family." "You've forgotten Johnny Chuck," cried Peter. Old Mother Nature laughed. "So I have," said she. "That will never do, never in the world. Johnny and his relatives, the Marmots, certainly cannot be overlooked. We will take them for our lesson to-morrow. Peter, you tell Johnny Chuck to come over here to-morrow morning.
"The marmots are eaten both by Indians and white hunters. Sometimes they are captured by pouring water into their burrows; but this method only succeeds in early spring, when the animals awake out of their torpid state, and the ground is still frozen hard enough to prevent the water from filtering away.
"The Marmots of the Far West," replied Old Mother Nature. "You know, you are a Marmot, and these cousins of yours out there are a great deal like you in a general way. The biggest and handsomest of all is Whistler, who lives in the mountains of the Northwest. The fact is, he is the biggest of all the Marmot family." "Is he much bigger than Johnny Chuck?" asked Peter Rabbit.
Sometimes, for miles together, the dry plain was studded thick with the earthen mounds that marked the burrows of the curious marmots, called prairie dogs from their squeaking bark. He was able to revivify a dusty document as well as a personal experience. "To him," as Mr. It is an excellent photograph by the side of a master's painting.
It may be added that there is scarce one of these species of which there are not two or more varieties, known only to those who have made a study of the Kingdom of Nature. In this group we include not only Rats, but a great many other small rodents, or gnawers, such as Mice, Marmots, Lemmings, Hamsters, Mole-Rats, Jerboas, and Jumping Mice.
Wolves, foxes, lynx, bear, wildcats, sables, martens, squirrels and marmots are brought in by thousands; and great quantities of sheep, goat, cow and antelope hides are sent annually to Kalgan. Several foreign fur houses of considerable importance already have their representatives in Urga and more are coming every year.
About five kos on our journey we halted to let the kitchen come up, and had our breakfast on the snow in the company of a select party of marmots. The little creatures appeared to live in great peace and seclusion here, for they let us up, in their ignorance of fire-arms, to within thirty yards of them before scuttling into their habitations.
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