The Pocket Gopher. 123 



esting for the occupants. When one is trapping gophers he 

 will occasionally surprise a bull-snake in the act of trying to 

 swallow the captured animal, trap and all. I have also found 

 this snake in the burrow of the striped spermophile, helping 

 himself to a nestful of the young of the latter, and have seen 

 him capture and kill the adult spermophile at the mouth of its 

 burrow. 



The little striped skunk (Spilogale interrupta) should not 

 be left out of account in discussing the natural enemies of the 

 pocket gopher. I had not supposed that these animals could 

 make their way through the burrows of the gopher, and had 

 laid to the charge of weasels a number of cases of killing and 

 feeding on gophers imprisoned in steel traps. Finally I re- 

 sorted to setting traps a second time in the mouths of the bur- 

 rows where a gopher had been partly eaten, and in two in- 

 stances succeeded in capturing a little striped skunk. There 

 was no question in either case but that the skunk had entered 

 the burrow at some point remote from the location of the trap, 

 for the opening through which the trap had been introduced 

 had been carefully covered with a board and loose earth ; this 

 covering was undisturbed. In comparing this slender little 

 skunk's body with the diameter of many of the gopher burrows 

 in alfalfa fields, it will be seen at once that it is not a difficult 

 matter for the skunk to make his way through the under- 

 ground passages. The additional fact that, by digging, he 

 can enter the burrow at any point and corner the occupant in 

 some lateral or pocket tunnel renders the little striped skunk 

 especially valuable as a gopher catcher. 



In summary, it may be said that we cannot, except in a few 

 favored localities, depend upon natural forces to keep in check 

 the increase of the pocket gopher. By increasing the acreage 

 of alfalfa we are producing the very conditions that are favor- 

 able to the most rapid multiplication of the species, and, on 

 the other hand, by thoughtlessly or wantonly destroying harm- 

 less owls, hawks, bull-snakes, and certain mammals, we still 

 further interfere with nature's efforts to preserve the balance 

 of power in he animal world. The worst that can be said of 

 the enemies of the pocket gopher is that the Great Horned 

 owl, the weasel and the skunk sometimes destroy domestic 

 fowls. But a little wise precaution in shutting up coops at 

 night would prevent these inroads on the poultry industry. 



