OCT., 1899.] MAMMALS. 97 



At Wagon Camp, aiul tbeiice eastward to Pantlier (Jieek, the whole 

 country is honeycombed with tlieir subterranean passages. While we 

 were at Wagon Camp they were unmitigated pests, throwing up little 

 mounds of fresh earth in our midst every day and keejiing the ground 

 disturbed the whole time, so tliat it was impossil)le to walk in any 

 direction outside of the marsh without stirring up a cloud of dust. I 

 shot several in cam^) in the daytime, as they poked their heads out of 

 their burrows, pushing little loads of dirt before them. They throw 

 out the earth so rapidly that it is difficult to observe the process accu- 

 rately. One appeared to empty it from his pouches, but I shot him in 

 the act and found his jiouches free from dirt and full of cut pieces of 

 roots. 



On the higher slopes the winter earth plugs — the cylinders of earth 

 mixed with heather which in winter are pushed up into the snow from 

 the underground passages — remain on the ground all summer, a strik- 

 ing evidence of the absence of rains, for a single hard shower would 

 disintegrate and wash them away. They usually take the form of 

 irregular serpentine ridges; but on Squaw Creek one was found which 

 formed n complete oval ring with radiating cylinders. A photograph 

 of this one, taken August 1, 1898, is here reproduced. (See fig. 31.) 



Thomomys monticola pinetorum subsp. nov. Pine- woods Gopher. 



Type from Sisson, Siskiyou County, Calif. No. 95152, (^ .ad.., U. S. Nat. Mus., Biological 

 Survey Coll. Collected Sept. 4, 1898, by R. T. Fisher. Orig. No. 173. 



Characters. — Similar in general to T. monticola, but slightly smaller; 

 skull shorter and broader; color very much paler. 



Color. — Upperparts j)ale fulvous, almost orange fulvous (in striking 

 contrast to the much darker colors of monticola and mazama)) nose 

 dusky; sides of head in one pelage plumbeous or slaty faintly washed 

 with buffy; in other pelage strongly washed with ochraceous. 



Cranial characters. — Skull, contrasted with that of monticola, short 

 and broad, with zygomata much more widely spreading. 



Measurements. — Type: Total length, 210; tail vertebrae, 7G; hind 

 foot, 28. 



RemarTcs. — Common at Sisson and thence up to Wagon Camp, grading 

 gradually into T. monticola, 



Dipodomys californicus Merriam. Kangaroo Rat. 



Common in the manzanita chaparral on the south side of Shasta 

 from Squaw Creek Valley, near McCloud Mill, up along the road to 

 Wagon Camp, as far at least as an altitude of 4,800 feet, where their 

 unmistakable tracks abounded in the dusty soil. In Shasta Valley 

 they are exceedingly abundant and destructive to grain, according to 

 complaints of the ranchmen. Here W. H. Osgood found their little 

 trails winding about through the sage brush in all directions, and saw 

 fresh tracks in the road every morniug. 

 21753— No. 10 13 



