Georgia Gopher 



Mississippi Valley, while several closely related forms occur in 

 the Southern States. 



Georgia Gopher 



Geomys tuza (Ord) 

 Also called Pocket Gopher, Salamander. 



Length. 10 inches. 



Description. Cinnamon-brown with a somewhat fulvous tinge, 

 an indistinct darker median stripe on the back; below dull 

 ochraceous; hairs on the feet white, tail almost naked. 



Range. Pine barrens of southern Georgia; represented in Florida 

 and Alabama by closely related geographic races. 



This little animal furnishes another example of the ambiguity 

 of popular names. By all rights of priority and descent he is 

 entitled to the name of gopher given to their Western relatives 

 by the early French explorers, and signifying "honeycomb" in 

 reference to their numerous burrows. Unfortunately our Southern 

 pioneers bestowed this name upon a burrowing tortoise, while the 

 true gopher was christened the " salamander," a name which is 

 misleading and to which he has no just claim. Popular names, 

 however, are too firmly established to yield to argument, and so 

 the Georgia gopher will remain the salamander in spite of us. 



Thoroughly adapted for a subterranean life, these animals 

 spend almost all their time in their burrows, and even where 

 they are abundant few people are acquainted with their appear- 

 ance or habits, their presence being known only by their bur- 

 rows and the gnawing of roots and vegetables. 



"Gopher burrows seem to have neither beginning nor end," 

 writes Vernon Bailey. " They are extended and added to yeai 

 after year and in many cases those dug by a single animal 

 would measure a mile or more, if straightened out. At the end of 

 a year a gopher may often be found within twenty rods of the point 

 from which he started, but in travelling this distance he has paid 

 no attention to the points of the compass. He follows a tender 

 root for a few feet, then moves to one side, encounters a stone 

 and makes a second turn. A layer of mellow soil entices him off 

 in another direction, and so on through a thousand devious crooks 



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