Plains Pocket Mouse; Ord’s Kangaroo Rat 
Plains Pocket Mouse 
Perognathus tlavescens (Merriam) 
Length. 5 inches. 
Description. External cheek pouches lined with hair opening or 
either side of the mouth; hair harsh; grayish buff above mixec 
with dusky white below, sides, ring around eye anc 
spot behind the eye clear buff, feet and legs white. 
Range. Plains from South Dakota to northern Texas and west to 
the base of the Rocky Mountains. Numerous other species 
occur throughout the sandy arid regions of the West from 
British Columbia to Mexico and California. 
Very little is known of the life history of the pocket mice, 
mainly because they are strictly nocturnal in habits and pass 
the daytime in their burrows in the sandy ground with the 
openings generally stopped with earth. Like the gophers they 
carry their food in their curious cheek pouches and store it 
away in their subterranean granaries. 
Ord’s Kangaroo Rat 
Perodipus ordi (Woodhouse) 
Length. 9.60 inches. 
Description. Ochraceous buff above, blackish on the rump. Sides 
of nose, spot behind each ear and band across the’ thighs 
white, under parts white; tail dusky down the middle, above 
and below, showing white bases to hairs on either side. 
Range. Western Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Many other 
species occur through the arid regions of the West. 
This is another nocturnal inhabitant of the sandy plains of 
the Southwest. It makes an underground nest with numerous 
communicating passageways, the whole forming a low hillock which 
easily caves in and which horses and mules familiar with the 
country have learned to carefully avoid. 
Ernest Seton-Thompson gives an interesting account of a nest 
of this little animal which he investigated. It was situated under 
the sheltering spines of a bunch of Spanish bayonets and _thistles, 
which guarded effectually from would-be pursuers the nine open- 
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