ZOOLOGY. 119 



They go considerable distances to fields; and the traveller, 

 whose a]>proach scares them, sees them in hundreds rmming 

 across tlie road before him, with their tails erect, hurrying 

 from the field to hide themselves in their burrows. Many a 

 large wheat-held, which would have yielded forty bushels to 

 the acre if there had been no spermophiles to trouble it, is so 

 despoiled by them, that the crop will not pay for harvesting. 

 They are particularly abundant in the Santa Clara, Amador, 

 and Pajaro valleys ; and their number is an important consid- 

 eration in the estimate of the price of land. They will not 

 live in moist land, nor very near the ocean, where the fogs 

 prevail. They are poisoned with strychnine and phosphorus, 

 drowned by irrigation, and shut out by tight board-fences. 

 In wet winters many of them are drowned ; after a dry winter 

 they are'' always numerous. Away from cultivated fields they 

 depend for food chiefly upon grass-seeds, grass-roots, and 

 acorns. 



The Californian gopher {Thomomys hulhivorus) is, next to 

 Beechey's spermophile, the most abundant and most trouble- 

 some rodent of the state. \^hen full grown, it has a body six 

 or eight inches long, Avith a tail of two inches. The back and 

 sides are of a chestnut-brown color, paler on the under parts 

 of the body and legs ; the tail and feet are grayish-white ; the 

 ears are very short. In the cheeks are large pouches, covered 

 with fur inside, white to their margin, which is dark-brown. 



The gopher inhabits the fertile valleys of the coast from lati- 

 tude 34° to 39°. He spends nearly all his time under ground, 

 and does most of his mischief there, gnawing off" the roots of 

 fruit-trees and garden vegetables, eating newly-sown grain 

 and seeds, and nibbling at flowers and sweet bulbs. He is not 

 a climber, nor is he very agile : if he gets into a trench eight 

 inches wide and a foot deep, with perpendicular sides, he will 

 run a long distance in it rather than clamber out; and one of 

 the best methods of catching him is to make such a trench 

 round a field, and pjace square tin boxes, fifteen inches dtep, 

 eight inches square, and open at the top, in the bottom of the 



