After a while the owners of the heads became more courageous, and boldly stepped out-of-doors; and then could be seen hundreds of these strange creatures.

They were of a reddish-brown colour, with breasts and bellies of a dirty white.

Their bodies were about the size of the common grey squirrel; but their general appearance partook of the squirrel, the weasel, and the rat--all three of which they in some respects resembled, and yet were not like any of them.

They were a distinct species of animals.

They were _Marmots_, that species known by the fanciful appellation of "prairie-dogs," (_Arctomys ludoviciana_).