PRAIRIE POCKET-GOPHERS 



and valuable service he had rendered. The ani- 

 mal who had never shown mercy or had sympathy 

 for others received none at last for himself! 



The farmer's plough had unearthed a gopher's 

 nest containing two little ones about a week old. 

 They were perfectly helpless. Their eyes and 

 ears were tightly closed and they lay on a small 

 round bed of soft grass and vegetable fibres. 

 They were pretty little things of a translucent, 

 pinkish-white color. Their heads were round and 

 their little fat front paws and fingers gave them 

 somewhat the appearance of a little human baby. 

 The farmer undertook to raise them, but they 

 were too young and the effort failed. The young 

 attain their full growth by fall and are then per- 

 fectly accomplished in the art of gopher mining. 



The farmer maintained a constant war with 

 his four-footed miner neighbors, but they held 

 their own for a long while. They ate his po- 

 tatoes and other tuberous vegetables and ruth- 

 lessly helped themselves annually to his water- 

 melons. But the most unbearable and disap- 

 pointing damage they did was to completely 

 gnaw off the roots of the apple, cherry and 

 peach trees he had set out and whose growth 

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