SEWELLEL FAMILY 



207 



and the explorers noticed that every skin they 

 saw lacked a tail. Eventually they learned 

 that the animal is tailless. Even today it is a 

 strange mammal to most readers for it is to be 

 found only in a narrow belt along the coast of 

 Northern California, Oregon and Washington 

 and not east of the Cascade Sierra Nevada series 

 of mountains ; while in addition it is an animal of 

 retiring habits and apt to escape the notice even 

 of the people about it. Much has yet to be 

 learned of the more intimate details concerning 



were evidences of activity, I saw none of the 

 animals themselves. Those caught in traps were 

 frequently alive when the rounds were made in 

 the morning, and one such individual furnished 

 me most of my points on behavior. 



The " colonies " of this animal were found 

 most frequently where vegetation was rankest 

 and where moist loose soil made digging easiest. 

 A\nien such a place is encountered the large holes 

 and piles of earth thrown out from the burrows 

 are generally numerous. 



Ftiotograpti by H. E, Anthony 



SEWELLEL, OR SHOWT'L 

 A peculiar and little-known beast which occupies a family all to itself 



this little beast, which in structure is one of the 

 most primitive types of living mammals. The 

 writer's personal observations appeared recently 

 in a Bulletin of the American Museum, some 

 paragraphs of which are repeated. 



The Showt'l in some of its habits and in ap- 

 pearance greatly resembles certain large Pocket 

 Gophers. 



If not strictly nocturnal it is at least so much 

 so that the animal can rarely be seen during the 

 day. Although a number of runways were 

 visited and I was daily in places where there 



The " colonies," however, are not large. A 

 series of runways is inhabited by a single 

 family, and there is no evidence that this animal 

 is as social in its habits as, for example, the 

 Prairie Dog, or the Meadow Mouse. One might 

 be led to suppose many individuals were present 

 because of the amount of earth thrown out and 

 the numerous runways, but this is easily 

 accounted for by the activity of the Showt'l. 

 Traps set in the runways were almost always 

 successful the first night, one and possibly two 

 animals being caught. Thereafter traps set in 



