30 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



was one for each few feet. We killed many of them with guns, and tried to poison 

 them, but with apparently very little success. 



By scattering shelled corn along the fences for the squirrels to feed upon while 

 the planted corn was coming up, most of the difficulty was obviated. A wary old 

 female cat which had taken up her quarters in a barn in one of the fields caught 

 many of these squirrels, and was accustomed to carry them to her kittens. The 

 ofiFspring of this cat, when full-grown, also preyed upon the squirrels. In the course 

 of a few years these cats, over a dozen in number, almost, if not entirely, extermi- 

 nated the squirrels on our farm and neighboring territory. The cats would conceal 

 themselves in the grass and weeds along the walls, or more commonly crouch upon 

 the top of the walls, and pounce upon the squirrels when out from their hiding- 

 places. These same cats also caught many rabbits after the stjuirrel supply began 

 to diminish. I do not know of any other instance where cats caught the large 

 ground squirrels to any considerable extent.* These cats also caught pocket 

 gophers and the little striped ground-squirrel gophers. 



III. Pocket gopher {Geomys bursarius). Common everywhere throughout this 

 section of the country. There must be as many as one per acre, or even more, in 

 certain favored localities. Nurserymen and gardeners have the most complaints to 

 make against this "very troublesome little animal," as it is frequently termed; the 

 principal of which may be summed up in the following manner: They do consid- 

 erable damage to young hedge-rows by burrowing under them and cutting off the 

 roots and underground stems. As a rule, the damaged places are but a few feet in 

 length, but some instances have been noted where a third, or even a half, of the 

 plants have been destroyed for a distance of a hundred feet or more. This usually 

 happens where the gopher's course crosses and recrosses the hedge-row. Other 

 kinds of trees are sometimes killed in a like manner in nurseries, and a few in 

 young orchards. Potato farmers, particularly those raising sweet potatoes, com- 

 plain that the gophers work on their crops from the time they are planted until 

 they are removed from the fields. In some sweet-potato fields which I visited, 

 places were found in the rows from a few feet to two or three rods in length where 

 the gophers had either killed the vines while they were quite young, or had cut up 

 and carried away most of the potatoes after the latter were formed. 



Winter before last Mr. Gibson, a farmer who lives one and a half miles north of 

 Lawrence, lost thirty-five bushels of sweet potatoes by gophers. They were removed 

 from a cellar which contained five hundred bushels. The cellar was dug in sandy 

 soil in the edge of the field where the potatoes were raised. The gophers effected 

 an entrance at the bottom of the cellar, under the edge of the boards which lined 

 one of its sides. The cavity from which the potatoes were removed was four feet 

 deep on the side where the gophers entered, and extended for some considerable 

 distance into the interior. The hole from which the potatoes had been removed 

 was packed solid with earth. This hole was undoubtedly filled up with earth as fast 

 as the potatoes were removed; for there was no external evidence, by settling of the 

 potatoes in the bin, of the mischief which was going on underneath. After the 

 potatoes were removed in the early spring, traps were set, and two gophers (appar- 

 ently all which had been working upon the potatoes) were caught. 



Several reports have been noted to the effect that from one to fifteen bushels of 

 Irish potatoes have been removed by gophers from potato-heaps buried in fields. 

 Some damage is reported to have been done to cabbage and various other garden 

 plants by eating off roots and stems, and then usually pulling the plant down into 

 the ground. 



* Prof. (j. H. Failyer, of the State Agricultural College, reports a similar case as having come under 

 his observation in southeastern Iowa. 



