We have since learnt, that these animals generally live in the desart,
and burrow in the sides of the mountains where the earth is blackish;
that some of them make their holes seven or eight feet long, at the end
of which they form different apartments for storing up provisions for
the winter, which consist of ears of corn, peas, lint, and hemp seeds:
or if they be not cultivated lands, different kinds of herbs, all of
which they keep separate in different parts of their holes, to which
they have from two to five entrances, always winding, and the mouths
of them sometimes seven feet asunder; they also dig holes for their
habitations separate from their magazines. Besides grain and herbs they
feed upon young mice, but are unable to encounter the full-grown ones.
The females have from two to five young ones at a time, which are first
blind, and without hair; nor do they begin to see till after the hair
appears.