MAMMALS UNDERGROUND 249 



The gopher is omnipresent here. It is very social, and 

 I have seen a plot of land in Los Angeles, next to a house, 

 perforated with the holes of these animals that rarely if 

 ever came out during the daytime, and even then ventured 

 but a few feet from the hole. They are about the size of 

 rats and there are several species from Florida to Califor- 

 nia. The CaHfornia species has large pouches which it 

 will fill with food when it comes out of its hole and thinks 

 it is unobserved ; but it rarely ventures far from the nest and 

 invariably runs back tail first, or backward, when not far 

 from the den. It can be recognized in any region by the 

 mounds it throws up, and for a long period it seems to lie 

 more or less dormant or inactive. Its holes run in every 

 direction and are used by a family, the animal displaying 

 remarkable skill in coming up beneath the roots of plants. 

 I have seen my favorite carnations waving wildly, as though 

 an earthquake was shaking them, then the stalk and flower 

 would disappear, being hauled down into the burrow and 

 eaten. In this way a few gophers will in a short time 

 devastate a garden or destroy the symmetry of a lawn, or 

 eat the roots of a large palm or other tree. 



Few animals are more clever than the gopher. A lot 

 adjoining my home has been vacant many years and is 

 filled with their dens. When the weeds die down here in 

 spring the gophers cast longing eyes at my garden and 

 promptly burrow under the fence, coming forty or fifty 

 feet, some digging from across a street to prey upon the 

 flowers. If the gopher threw up a mound here I could 

 quickly recognize its presence and destroy it ; but in eight 

 years' experience I have seldom known a gopher to throw 

 up a mound in my garden, though there may be scores, like 



