liAT.S AND MICE 



343 



the middle West. Gophers not only destroy grain and 

 the roots of forage plants, turnips, mangels, etc., but 

 they waste the land itself, making it a network of bur- 

 rows and pitfalls and throwing up the dirt from their 

 lairs, not carrying it through the main entrance but 

 bringing it out of side ways, and heaping it until it makes 

 great mounds that cover and destroy acres of sprouting 



Pouched ok Mole Gophek. 



crops. Then they are restless animals, moving constantly 

 and making new homes, so that the Gopher plague goes 

 on the list of farming miseries, side by side with grass- 

 ho})pers, seven-year locusts, and blizzards. Yet the 

 farmer seldom thanks the Hawks and Owls for their 

 missionary work in the Gopher community, and wages 

 war on the Coyote who, in (Jopher I^and at least, does 



