578 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



from being an unusual one, and was drawn because it happened 

 to be near my camp. During the day I passed many that were 

 larger and more complicated. 



In a corner of the same drawing is shown a curious case 

 where the Gopher had carried his snow-tunnel and earth-plug 

 over a log lo inches in diameter. 



NON- It is clear that the Pocket-gophers do not hibernate. 



NANT The species that I have observed do not get fat in the fall; 

 fossor and talpoides I know lay up a store of food for the winter, 

 and as early as April 12 (1883), at Carberry, I took one from 

 a white owl. Evidently it was abroad foraging, though there 

 was yet plenty of snow on the ground. 



There is every reason to believe that talpoides and its kin 

 continue active the whole year round, which means that they 

 never cease to dig. 



EARTH- In his well-known book on "The Formation of Vegetable 



NOT NA- Mould through the Action of Worms," Darwin begins with this 

 TivEiN statement: ''Earthworms are distributed throughout the 

 world," and later gives much detailed evidence in support of it. 

 I was therefore greatly surprised on going to Manitoba, in 

 1882, to find that the common earthworm was there quite 

 unknown. 



I was not aware at the time that in 1828 Richardson 

 wrote ^ of the Mole-gopher, "It cannot, like the English Mole, 

 feed on earthworms, for none exist in those latitudes. ... I 

 was told by a gentleman who has for forty years superintended 

 the cultivation of considerable pieces of ground on the banks 

 of the Saskatchewan, that during the whole of that period 

 he never saw an earthworm turned up." 



In November of 1882 I recorded the absence of earth- 

 worms from Manitoba in my paper on the Gophers, published 

 by the Manitoba Department of Agriculture in the spring of 

 1883.^ The following remarks appear therein: 



^ F. B. A., 1829, 1, p. 204. 



* Agr. Rep. Mam. for 1882, pub. Winnipeg, 1883, pp. 169-172. 



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