MARMOT AS GOURMET

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 73, 18 December 1937, Page 15

MARMOT AS GOURMET

A Taste For Macaroni

When walking in a high valley in the Alps you may hear, from a boulderstrewn slope, a shrill whistle as if a 'tiny train were going into a tiny tunnel. If you have quick eyes, you may see a flash of brown fur vanishing iuto a hole under a Tock. If yqu wait very quietly, you may see the animal himself— the marmot. He is nearly always with a group of other marmots, for marmots live in colonies. The chief enemies of the marmot, which is related to-the squirrel famiij, aro the eagle and the fox, which are more dangerous to liim than man. This has been proved in the Swiss National Park, where no human interference with nature is permitted. Since this has been the case, the fox population has inereased? but the marmot population has decreased because the foxes are not thinned out. Dominic Feuerstein, in an enehanting book calied "Peterli," describes how he found a two-day old marmot which had been wounded by ravens. He took it home, and it Tecovered and became a household pet — so tame that it would sit on his shoulder. When it was well grown he thought he ought to set Peterli firee, so, very reluctantly, he took Tnm thi place .where he had found. hina.

and retired beiund a rock to watok what would happen. Some wild marmots came out from their burrows aud attacked Peterli so fiercely that his huimiu l'rieud had to come to the rescu*. Ai'ter this Dominic felt entitled to keep Peterli, to the great delight both of Peterli himself and Dominic 's children. Peterii has made a burrow near Dominic 's house. He dug it quite correctly, with two entrances, and lined it with hay, though he had never seen his relations dig a burrow. He often spends the day in his burrow, but returns voluntarily to the house at niglit. He was given the ehanee to hibernate in his burrow, but preferred the house, whore he has a warmly-lined box. Stockings and silk handkerchiefs are often miss-ing-r— Peterli has stolen them for his box or his burrow. Wild marmots live on grass and Alpine plants, but Peterli is particularly fond of maqaroni. Only it must have plenty of melted butter, or he turns up his nose at it. Once. vrhen a frving in whieh eggs had been fried was left on the stove, Peterli climbed up, got in-n it " d iickp.ft it clean, and was found sittiug up on his haunches in thc middle of the pan, whistling shrillyi and covered with grease,