prairie-dog

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

(Aretomys ludovicianus.) Called by the Indians Wistonwish. A variety of the marmot. It has received the name of Prairie-dog from a supposed similarity between its warning cry and the barking of a small dog. They live in large communities; their villages, as they are termed by the hunters, sometimes being many miles in extent. The entrance to each burrow is at the summit of the mound of earth thrown up during the progress of the excavation below. This marmot, like the rest of the species, becomes torpid during the winter, and, to protect itself against the rigor of the season, stops the mouth of its hole, and constructs a cell at the bottom of it, where it remains without injury.--Encyclopedia Americana. Also called Gopher.


The good people of Porter, Wisconsin, resolved to exterminate the gophers in that locality, and determined to have a hunt, to see if they could not annihilate them. Twenty men were chosen on a side, and the party that was beaten was to pay for a supper for the whole party. The result was that they killed 3,196 gophers.--Wisconsin Paper.

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