The marmot, commonly called the prairie dog, is more abundant throughout this section than any other quadruped. They live in villages scattered in every direction, and thickly inhabited; a single village in some instances occupying a tract of ground three or four miles in extent. Their habitations are burrows three or four inches in diameter, situated at the distance of fifteen or twenty paces asunder. Their habits and manners in other respects are peculiarly interesting. They subsist on vegetables; their {236} flesh is similar to that of the ground hog, and their hair equally as coarse. The beaver, otter, mink, and muskrat, are numerous upon the rivers, creeks, and rivulets issuing from the mountains, and generally upon those whose valleys are supplied with woodland. Badgers, raccoons, hares, polecats, porcupines, many varieties of squirrels, panthers, wild cats, lynxes and foxes of several species, are also inhabitants of this section. Besides these, the country affords a great variety and abundance of reptiles and insects, both venomous and harmless. Of the feathered tribes, no very considerable variety is observable. The turtle-dove, the jay, the barn swallow, the quail (partridge of the Middle States), the owl, whip-poor-will, and lark, which seem more widely distributed over the territory of the United States than any other birds, are found here. Several varieties of the hawk, containing some new species, the bald and gray eagle, the buzzard, raven, crow, jackdaw, magpie, turkey, two or three varieties of the grouse, pheasant, pigeon, many varieties of the sparrow and fly-catcher, the whooping or sandhill crane, curlew, sandpiper, together with a variety of other land and water fowls, are more or less numerous in this region. It is remarkable that birds of various kinds common to the sea-coast, and seldom found far in the interior, pervade the valley of the Mississippi to a great distance from the gulf of Mexico, and frequent the regions adjacent to the Rocky Mountains.