They must eat very little; and indeed it is a puzzle to naturalists how they sustain themselves.

Their great "towns" near the Rocky Mountains are generally in barren tracts, where there is but a scanty herbage; and yet the inhabitants are never found more than half a mile from their dwellings.

How, then, do thousands of them subsist on what little grass can grow in a pasture so circumscribed?
This has not been explained; nor is it known why they choose these barren tracts for their dwelling-places, in preference to the more fertile prairies.

All these things await the study and observation of the historian of nature.
Basil was surprised to observe that the marmots were not alone the occupants of their town.

There were other creatures moving about of an entirely different kind, and they also seemed to be perfectly at home.
There were white owls, about the size of pigeons, of a species he had never seen before.