432 POUCHED RAT OF GEORGIA. 



which sloped at an angle of about 45°, was nearly full of the animal's 

 manure, and, strange to say, we found no dung anywhere else in the 

 run. 



After spending the day in following these animals through all their 

 chambers, which involved digging to the distance of from three to 

 four hundred yards, we gave them up at a place where the hole was 

 still open, but the mounds almost entirely obliterated and overgrown 

 with grass. 



We had either thrown the animals out with the loose dirt, having 

 doubled themselves up and remained quiet, so as to escape our 

 observation, which was very close, or dug obliquely away from us, 

 and plugged the hole after them in such a manner that we could not 

 see it. Ordinarily it is as easy to follow the plug as the hole, for the 

 sand in which they work here is tinted of so many colors that the plug 

 can be easily recognized. • 



They were at work the following morning near the pine tree, in the 

 ditch, and among the loose earth we had made ; but although we attacked 

 them again, they eluded us. 



This day we dug out another pair, correcting and substantiating our 

 former observations, by their works, which differed in no important 

 point from the first. I have had these two pairs dug out, one of them 

 once, and the other twice, each time taking away a nest and store of 

 provisions, and they are still unhurt, and working away in the same 

 place. They work in raising their mounds, at which time they are 

 tunneling and collecting their food, mostly from four o'clock in the 

 morning until ten. The work is performed very rapidly, and from 

 two to five mounds the general average, and a distance accomplished 

 of from nine to fifteen feet ; but where they strike a place sparse of 

 food, they do not limit themselves to the morning for their season of 

 labor, or to any number of mounds, working, as I have witnessed 

 all day, if necessary. They stop work frequently for weeks at a 

 time, and no doubt live on the store in their dens. They are very 

 fond of sweet potatoes, and when they enter the patches of that vege- 

 table, grown by the poor people of this region, commit great and un- 

 restrained havoc; for to their inexperience in catching them, may be 

 added a superstitious dread that it is sure death to see one of them ; 

 consequently these people are not to be relied on to furnish specimens. 



In the plowed earth of a potato field, they are not particular with 

 their mounds, but displace the earth more after the manner of moles. 



The instinct inducing them to rise to the surface every three feet, or 

 thereabouts, to find a new deposit for the earth, which must be carried 

 out, to be displaced, on account of the depth at which they work and 

 the size of their bodies, is only equalled by the sagacity of the angular 

 direction of their tunnels, which is calculated to intercept the roots of 

 a greater amount of surface growth than a direct course would. 



In working, they collect a lot of the loose earth in the bottom of the 

 almost perpendicular hole leading to the surface, and then push it be- 

 fore them out over the edges, exposing their bodies but very little in 

 the act, and retiring immediately backwards. 



The most they expose themselves is in collecting dry grass for their 

 nests, and that is but for a moment at a time. They select only high 



