The Irish standard., 1891-11-28
7GRoUNDHOG PARADISE.
Il Region Where They Undermine Rail-
Ss5 WAYS and Live with Gray Rabbits.

~ Region w nero 1uGy OAAS0A AAAAAAO A~1sss
ways and Live with Gray Rabbits.
.tThey have an officer called the
grounding inspector on the Peach bot
tom railroad in Lancaster county, Pa,
said travelling man to a New York
Sun reporter, land he's a very irnpor-
tant officer, too The Peachbottom road
isn't very long nor a very wide one,
and it runs from Peach bottom on the
Susquehanna river diagonally across
the southern corner of Lancaster. That
is the paradise of the groundhogs
81 have been in the famous ground
hog pastures of Connecticut and New
Hampshire, where these animals an
nually eat up over seven hundred thou
sand dollars worth of clover for the
farmers, although there is price on
their heads and they are hunted night
and day; but those choice abiding
places for groundhogs are sparsely pop
ulated by them when compared with
that little neck Of country through
which the Peachbottom railroad goes.
They run the whole country there.
They have honeycombed the meadows
with their burrows until farmer can't
walk over his farm without STUN bling
into one of the holes at every step, and,
not satisfied with that, have set about
in systematic way to undermine the
Peachbottom railroad They have bur-
rowed it so successfully that man had
to be appointed, so was told at Ok
ford, to keep constant lookout along
che line SO that no train will be dumped
into the ditch from track made un-
stable by the burrowingo of groundhogs.
This Inspector reports the scattering OF
colony of twenty-five groundhogs in
one night, they having already
made an excavation in the railway en-
bankmert big enough for train to run
through. The slate and shale soil OF
that part of the country is what the
grounding likes, as it raises big clover
and is just the thing to burrow in.
1.-THE presence of so many grounding
holes in that region has also caused a
big increase in gray rabbits, according
to the farmers, although the rabbits
have always been more than plentiful.
These rabbits do not b1lrrow, and have
consequently always have been more
or less exposed to the attacks
of hawks, foxes, hunters and owls.
The grounding burrows, however,
they have suddenly discovered, offer
them excellent protection from their
enemies, and they seem TO be living
as contentedly and undisturbed in
the burrows with the groundhogs as
the burrowing owls and prairie dogs dc
on the western plains. This arrange
ment is especially advantageous to the
rabbits so far as foxes are concerned,
as fox will not enter a groundhog
hole under any consideration.
''The abundance of groundhogs in
southern Lancaster county has also
given rise to new sport, which hasn't
much to recommend it. This is the
matching of fighting dogs against
groundhogs, and scarcely night passes
chat a match is not fought in some
body's cellar or room fitted up for the
purpose. Dogs are trained parposely tt
fight groundhogs, and those who have
witnessed matches say that the ground
hog is such a fierce and gany fighter
when he is cornered and has to fight
that the dog has to be a good one with q
big reputation where the sports viii
not give odds in favor of the ground
hogs