The Pocket Gopher 



Mae Cresswell 

 Cedar Falls, la. 



A waste field, dead stalks of weeds and grass, here and there 

 among the gaunt stems small hiimps of fresh dirt. A clover 

 meadow level, green and smooth except a number of small mounds 

 of earth that look as if some careless person had dropped a bushel 

 or so of soil in a place at irregular inter\'als over the field. A closer 

 survey of those piles of dirt shows that they are not carelessly 

 dropped masses but are cones built up somewhat like volcanic 

 cones having a rim and a downslope toward the center. One or 

 two still show soil moist on the surface proving that the dirt has 

 been exposed to the sun but a few minutes. 



Who did it? How catch the offender? 'Tis a task worthy the 

 skill of a detective and will require many of his tactics. Don 

 clothes the color of dead grass and sit patiently in sight of the fresh 

 mound but concealed as much as possible and you may be rewarded 

 by the sight of the maker at work or such of him as appears above 

 groimd. The only sure way to see him in the open is to handcuff 

 him in a steel trap and pull him forth, a miost unwilling and savage 

 prisoner. Keep your shoe toe from his teeth. Leather is a small 

 obstacle to these, his useful weapons. 



You find him a squat-legged, square built almost neckless 

 rodent with a flat broad head, tiny beady eyes, sm^all inconspicuous 

 ears, and a short naked tail. He is some ten inches in length from 

 the tip of his snout to the back of his round stout ham.s with not 

 more than three inches more to be added for the tail. The soft 

 thick but short hairy coat is a grayish tawny brown. These 

 features are not the ones that challenge your attention. As 

 unusual as the elephant's trunk are the toenails on this creature's 

 forefeet. They resemble the enonrLously long finger nails said to 

 be the mark of a Chinese gentleman in fonrier days. But these 

 nails have the usefulness of the elephant's trunk rather than the 

 hindering tendencies of the Chinam.an's adomm-ent. Look at them 

 carefully and you will see that each of the five toes is armed with a 

 long curv^ed claw or nail. The one on the middle digit is fully an 

 inch and three quarters long, the next ones a trifle shorter and the 

 outer ones nearly an inch in length. The middle one is also the 

 broadest. Besides these nails there is also a fringe of long stiff 



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