es, by Eugene
Simon; see, for example, _Actes de la Soc. Lin. de
Bordeaux_, 1888.

Skilful diggers prepare burrows with several entrances; some even
arrange several rooms, each for a special object. The Otter seeks its
food in the water, and actively hunts fish in ponds and rivers. But
when fishing is over, it likes to keep dry and at the same time
sheltered from terrestrial enemies. Its dwelling must also present an
easy opening into the water. In order to fulfil all these conditions,
its house consists first of a large room hollowed in the bank at a
level sufficiently high to be beyond reach of floods. From the bottom
of this keep a passage starts which sinks and opens about fifty
centimetres beneath the surface of the water. It is through here that
the Otter noiselessly glides to find himself in the midst of his
hunting domain without having been seen or been obliged to make a
noisy plunge which would put the game to flight. If this were all, the
hermetically-closed dwelling would soon become uninhabitable, as there
would be no provision for renewing the air, so the Otter proceeds to
form a second passage from the ceiling of the room to the ground, thus
forming a ventilation tube. In order that this may not prove a cause
of danger, it is always made to open up in the midst of brushwood or
in a tuft of rushes and reeds.

Marmots also are not afraid of the work which will assure them a warm
and safe refuge in the regions they inhabit, where the climate is
rough. In summer they ascend the Alps to a height of 2,500 to 3,000
metres and rapidly hollow a burrow like that for winter time, which I
am about to describe, but smaller and less comfortable. They retire
into it during bad weather or to pass the night. When the snow chases
them away and causes them to descend to a lower zone, they think about
constructing a genuine house in which to shut themselves during the
winter and to sleep. Twelve or fifteen of these little animals unite
their efforts to make first a horizontal passage, which may reach the
length of three or four metres. They enlarge the extremity of it into
a vaulted and circular room more than two metres in diameter. They
make there a good pile of very dry hay on which they all install
themselves, after having carefully protected themselves against the
external cold by closing up the passage with stones and calking the
interstices with grass and moss.

In solitary woods or roads the Badge