The weasel, probably, behaves in much the same way as the fox, but whether a pretty little burrowing owl that makes the bizcachera his home—though he generally makes his own burrow—does any harm to the young ones, I cannot, for certain, say. I should think, however, that, as he is quite a small bird, such a meal would be beyond his strength, even though it might accord with his inclinations. A pair of these little owls are often to be seen sitting together, just at the entrance of one of the bizcacha burrows, and when the bizcacha comes out he may sit beside them, for a time, looking quite friendly, and as though he had come to have a chat. One might fancy that tea would be brought up soon by a servant. This, however, is mere imagination. In reality the two species are quite indifferent to one another, as is often the case with different animals that yet live together. Besides the owls, a lively, pretty little bird, called by the Spaniards the minera, makes holes in the sides of the pit, which forms the entrance to the bizcacha’s burrow, and a little swallow uses these holes for itself, and lays its eggs in them, when the mineras have flown away. It is like a miniature sandpit, with owls and mineras as well as sand-martins living in it, and it would all be very comfortable and harmonious if it were not for the fox and the weasel. The comfort is that it is not every bizcachera that has a fox for its landlord. Absentee landlordism is appreciated on the pampas. Most wonderful of all, as it seems, all sorts of insects live in these bizcacha villages, that are hardly seen anywhere else. Thus quite a little zoetrope of varied life revolves about the habitation that one animal has made for itself. It is much the same with the little prairie-dog, or marmot, that lives, as its name implies, on the prairies of North America. This little creature is a burrower, too, and, like the bizcacha, it throws up a mound of earth outside the burrow, on which it sits up on its hind legs and surveys the country, just as if it were a man. The mound, however, is a more ordinary one than that made by the bizcacha, and although the burrows are dug pretty close to each other, each one of them seems to have its separate mound. A great number of these—and the prairies are sometimes studded with them as far as the eye can reach—constitutes what is called a “dog-town” or “village”; and a very interesting thing it is to come upon such a town, with its tens or even hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are always to be seen sitting up on their dome-like mounds, like sentinels posted all about, to prevent the city being taken by surprise.