where it will continue good until the winter time, when
otherwise there would be a sad pinch of famine in the Coney world. The
trappers say that they can tell whether the winter will be hard or open
by the amount of food stored up in the Coney barns.

[Illustration]

Many a one of these I have examined in the mountains of British Columbia
and Colorado, as well as in the Park. The quantity of hay in them varies
from what might fill a peck measure to what would make a huge armful.
Among the food plants used, I found many species of grass, thistle,
meadow-rue, peavine, heath, and the leaves of several composite plants.
I suspect that fuller observations will show that they use every herb
not actually poisonous, that grows in the vicinity of their citadel.
More than one of these wads of hay had in the middle of it a nest or
hollow; not, I suspect, the home nest where the young are raised, but a
sort of winter restaurant where they could go while the ground was
covered with snow, and sitting in the midst of their provisions, eat to
their heart's content.

It is not unlikely that in this we see the growth of the storage habit,
beginning first with a warm nest of hay, which it was found could be
utilized for food when none other was available. The fact that these
barns are used year after year is shown by the abundance of pellets in
several layers which were found in and about them.

THE WEATHERWISE CONEY

[Illustration]

A very wise little people is this little people of the Rocks. Not only
do they realize that in summer they must prepare for winter, but they
know how to face a present crisis, however unexpected. To appreciate the
following instance, we must remember that the central thought in the
Coney's life is his "grub pile" for winter use, and next that he is a
strictly daytime animal. I have often slept near a Coney settlement and
never heard a sound or seen a sign of their being about after dark.
Nevertheless, Merriam tells us that he and Vernon Bailey once carried
their blankets up to a Coney colony above timber-line in the Salmon
River Mountains of Idaho, intending to spend the night there and to
study the Coneys whose piles of hay were visible in all directions on
their rocks. As this was about the first of September, it was natural to
expect fair weather and a complete curing of the hay in a week or so.
But a fierce storm set in with the descending night. The rain changed to
hail and then to snow, and muc