562 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



readily be turned inside out. It is claimed that the " salamander " 

 employs bis bandlike fore feet to fill and empty tbese receptacles, 

 using tbe rigbt foot for tbe left pouch, and vice versa. A gentle- 

 man in Florida recently assured me tbat by a lucky tbrust of a spade 

 be once killed one of tbese mischievous rodents as he was in the 

 very act of cutting off the roots of an orange tree. The cheek 

 pouches of the culprit were filled Avith fragments of bark which 

 be bead gnawed off, doubtless to be stowed away in his burrow. 



Why, in a climate where there is almost no winter, where there 

 is very little interruption to vegetable growth and the food supply 

 is practically unlimited, provisions should thus be stored away is 

 somewhat difficult to explain. It is not impossible that it is sim- 

 ply the survival of an ancestral habit acquired during the Glacial 

 period. Or it may be that, like the dog, the " salamander " finds 

 the flavor of old and well-seasoned food more to his taste. All 

 that can be positively affirmed is that this mse little rodent does, 

 occasionally at least, thus cache his food supplies. 



One of the most curious results of the existence and habits of 

 this elusive little burrowing rodent is the development of a new 

 and peculiar breed of Felis domestica, called " salamander " cats. 

 Ordinary tabbys do not understand or admire the ways of Geomys 

 iursarius, or, for some other good and sufficient feline reason, do 

 not include him in their game list. The variety of cats in question, 

 which, so far as the author knows, is confined to Florida, appears 

 to have been developed spontaneously and with very little if any 

 human agency, and is noted for its special skill in catching " sala- 

 manders," as well as a decided liking for the sport. Any Mrs. 

 Tabby of this breed, especially if she has a family to provide for, 

 is up betimes in the morning. The particular object of her pur- 

 suit is a remarkably early riser, and finishes his day's work before 

 most people have begun theirs. So if there is a convenient fence 

 around the grounds she proposes to hunt she mounts it with the 

 first peep of day, and, with a sharp eye to landward, starts on 

 her tour of observation. Any fresh pile of sand is closely scru- 

 tinized. The slightest movement there brings her to the mound 

 with a spring, and she is at once crouching behind it; so when Mr. 

 Geomys comes up in a big hurry with his next load of sand he finds 

 somebody to meet him that is in a bigger hurry still, and so the 

 unsuspecting victim is borne off in triumph. 



An estimable lady of the writer's acquaintance who owned one 

 of these " salamander " cats, with a single juvenile pussy to provide 

 for, kept an accurate account of the number of these rodents which 

 she saw this industrious mother cat bring to her offspring in a 

 single month. The number was thirty, and as the month hap- 



