The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-09-18
Prairie.DOgs.

A correspondent in the West writes
At the point we had now reached, we
were only six or seven miles from Obey.
enne. The road thither had become a
well-beaten track, along which one of
our party started to walk with me to-
wards the town, ahead of our teams.
We went on in full view of the railroad,
or rather, of the road in the state of
being graded into readiness for the re-
ception of rails. AS it was Sunday
morning, there was no work going on;
but we could see that there was need of
no small labor at this part of the line,
both in cutting and embanking, to pass
over the swells and hollows of the prai-
rie. In this walk we made our first ac-
quaintance with "prairie-dogs," the fun
niest little creatures simaginable, living in
populous prairie settlements of their
own, as rabbits herd together in rab-
bit-warrens. The prairie-dog is much
smaller than a rabbit, being hardly
much bigger than big rat. In shape,
he looks like a bull-terrier pup, so far
as one can Judge without ever having
seen him dead, or even very closely ap-
proachable. The holes have smaller
entrances than rabbit-holes, and go
down into the ground much more steep
ly and directly. In front of each is q
little mound, formed of the earth thrown
out of the hole, and, standing erect on
this eminence, with his tail smartly
cooked up in the air, the prairie dog
barks at all comers defantly, till, when
you get within twenty yards or so, his
courage fails him on a sudden, and he
ln1 IL b.,
Sometimes he just pops his head out for
an instant afterwards, for one last angry
bark at you. The barking is of the
feeblest kind, though of great anima-
ton and liveliness. For power and vol
ume of sound, the wheeziest of old
lady's lap-dogs would scorn to have his
note compared with it. It reminds one,
in tone, of children's toy-dogs
gray dogs on hollow stands, so con-
trived that when the stand is pressed
together, a thin and ghostly barking
seems to proceed from the effigy of q
dog thereon seated.
And, indeed, these very effigies, as
they appear in the toy-shop window,
look something like the little "Come-
dams of the Prairie, as somebody called
the prairie-dogs. L have seen probably
as many as forty or fifty shots fired
from time to time by good pistol
shooters at this small game of the
prairies, but never saw q death yet
and men versed in prairie lore tell you
that, of oil marks, these prairie dogs
are much the hardest and most trying
to the temper. However, it is managed,
they must be sometimes killed; for
Westerners say they are excellent eat
ing, besides being something like squir-
rel in taste, favorite dish in parts of
America. The strange story about the
happy family" living together in each
of the holes was told to us, as it is to
all travellers - how prairie-dog, q
prairie-owl and rattlesnake lived on
friendly terms in every hole. I had no
means of verifying or disproving the
statement, but have looked up the
point in books of prairie travel. Bayard
Taylor says of his Western journeyings
"The prailie-dogs sat upright at the
doors of their underground habitations,
and barlled at us with comical petulance.
Towards evening, their partners, the
owls, also came out to take the air.
The rattlesnakes were still, presume,
indoors, as we saw but two or three
during the whole journey"
Bowles says of the prairie-dogs ::
"Only pair occupy each hole but
we hear the same story, that earlier
travellers record, that snake and an
owl share their homes with them. The
snake we did not see; but the owl, q
species no larger than the robin, solemn,
stiff and straight, stood guard at many
of the holes"