The Savannah tribune. [volume] (Savannah [Ga.]) 1876-1960, 1888-06-30
WOULD NOT LIVE PRISONERS.
A Sad Story of the Captivity Of .
Colony of Prairie Dogs.

"When I was little boy my father
moved from Hoosierdom over upon a
broad and blooming prairie in Illinois,
said man to reporter of Chicago pa
per. "That prairie, stretching as far as
the eye could reach to the north and
west, was one vast garden of flowers and
plants from April to November. There
must have been hundred varieties OF
wild, blooming plants, ranging from the
lowly strawberry, with its white blossom,
to the gaudy, famboyant wild mangoid,
whose oriental splendors gave vivid color
to miles and miles of undulating prairie.
''But this by the way. l started IN to
speak or the prairie dogs. The flowers
were scarcely more numerous than they.
You might ride for miles along path
hanked on either side by their villages,
which were seldom more than few rods
apart. These villages, always on some lit
tie knoll or hill, were populous. The
horseman who approacned one of them
would see n sentinel gravely motionless
ct the door of every burrow. One could
scarcely tell these sentries from bits OF
wood, so still and straight were they, 30
much part Of the great, silent land
scape.
"But if ever there was case of now
you see it and now you don't, those little
sentinel prairie dogs offer the traveller a
striking example He sees them there,
as silent and impressive as the sentries
of Pompeii and wonders what they will
do when he gets closer He keeps his
eye fixed on two or three of them, and
ANONYMOUSLY checks his horse, SO that
the chatter of hoofs may not startle
them. He is within fifty, thirty, twenty
PAGES, when 10! the sentries are gone.
He has not seen them go. The earth
has swallowed them. He rubs his eyes
and he rides on, wondering If it were
all an illusion. He looks back to assure
himself, when lol the sentries are there
as still and statuesque as before.
Zone time my father trapped four or
five of them. don't know how he man
aged it; I've forgotten that. l think
they must have been young and foolish,
like baby rats, which venture where
their pa and ma would never go. My
father brought them home, and we chill
dren Rugged ourselves in delight as we
fancied them as pretty pets like squir-
rels or white rabbits. A cage was quick
~ HbUcu upJ VIC ChpIlNtS WoI0 JlhCcu III
it and surrounded by all the dainties
which we fancied could tempt them to
forget their captivity. Our parents kept
us away from the cage. as the little
strangers regarded us with a terror
which they did not attempt to conceal.
But we went to place more food before
them the next morning. The food pre-
viously provided had not been touched.
The little prisoners sat YEARLY ON their
launches in the dark extremity of their
cell. Childish curiosity was repressed
till the second morning, when the cage
was again visited. The captives sat in
the same position, and no morsel of the
varied bill of fare with which we had
designed to tempt them had been touch
ed. The water was undiminished in the
bowl. Another day passed, the third
morning came, and we ran out to see our
pets. The sight that met our eyes
shall never forget. tIn their hunger and
despair the poor captives had eaten their
own feet The bloody stumps were
sad and sickeniug reproof to our cruelty
in depriving the children of the prairie
of their wild, sweet liberty. We felt it,
children as we were, and silently, almost
in tears, we opened the prison door and
slipped away to give the captives oppor-
tunity to escape. But it was too late.
With their little feet gnawed off up al
most to their little bodies, they could
scarcely more than drag themselves out
into the grass, where they soon after
died -