The rattle-snakes, too, betook themselves to the burrows, and so did the lizards and agamas.

What appeared most strange, was, that all of these creatures--marmots, owls, snakes, lizards, and agamas--were observed, when suddenly escaping, sometimes to enter the same mound! This our travellers witnessed more than once.
Very naturally the conversation turned upon these things; and Lucien added some facts to what Basil had already observed.
"The holes," said he, "had we time to dig them up, would be found to descend perpendicularly for two or three feet.

They then run obliquely for several feet farther, and end in a little chamber which is the real house of the marmot.

I say the _real_ house, for these cone-like mounds are only the entrances.

They have been formed out of the earth brought up from below at the making of the burrows.