If they eat the young marmots, what is to hinder them from killing as many as they please?
They can enter the burrows with as much ease as the marmots themselves!" "That is true," replied Lucien, "but not half so nimbly; and perhaps the latter can even escape them within.

The rattle-snake is a very slow crawler; and, besides, only strikes his prey when coiled up.

Perhaps, in these subterranean galleries, he is still less able to capture it; and the old marmots may, after all, have some mode of defending both themselves and their young from his venomous attacks.

As yet very little is known of these creatures.

The remote regions in which they are found place them beyond the observation of naturalists; and such of these, as have visited their towns, have been only allowed time to make a hurried examination of them.