GROUND-SQUIKRELS 149 



squirrels they vary their seed-diet with insects. 

 It is a relative of these chipmunks, marked by 

 thirteen stripes, dark brown on rusty yellow, 

 which is known throughout the Northwest, from 

 Lake Michigan to Alberta, as the "striped 

 gopher," and as a pest to farmers on account 

 of the grain it steals and the runways for water 

 its burrows make. Still worse are several 

 other northwestern ground-squirrels which 

 have plain yellowish-gray coats and are known 

 as "gray gophers," though the term "gopher" 

 should be restricted to the Geomys; the most 

 familiar is Franklin's spermophUe. 



This graceful animal was originally abundant 

 as far south as central Missouri and Illinois, 

 but long ago disappeared before the civilizing 

 of its prairie home, and now remains numerous 

 only in the wilder districts of the Dakotas and 

 northward. It is pretty and interesting, but 

 too much of an impediment to good agriculture 

 to permit the farmer to tolerate it ; yet the an- 

 imal increases so rapidly under the protective 

 and food- supply ing conditions which the hu- 

 man settlement of the country brings it, that 

 its extermination will be a matter of great diffi- 



