The Pocket Gopher. 



113 



Head of prairie pocket gopher, showing entrances 

 to cheek pockets and grooved upper incisors. 



parts of its range. Specimens taken about Manhattan average 

 ten to eleven inches in length from tip of nose to tip of tail. 

 The latter is about three and one-fourth inches long. The hind 

 foot measures one and one-third inches. The average weight 

 is very close to twelve ounces. The males are heavier, larger, 

 and broader in the shoulders than the females. 



Distribution. The prairie pocket gopher, Geomys bursarius, 

 is distributed over that part of the upper Mississippi valley 

 which includes the central and eastern parts of the Dakotas, 

 Nebraska and Kansas, the whole of Iowa, and portions of Mis- 

 souri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. On the west ex- 

 cepting in the Dakotas its 

 range meets and partly overlaps 

 that of the plains pocket gopher, 

 G. lutescens, and on the south 

 that of the Louisiana gopher, 

 G. breviceps. In the westen/ 



Front foot of prairie pocket gopher. P^rt of the DakotaS Geomys is 



