26 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol.12 



leave the burrows in quest of mates, though positive information on 

 the subject is difficult to obtain." 



The only reference to a habit of foraging above ground that the 

 writer has been able to find is the following from E. T. Seton (1909. 

 p. 571) : "Frequently, possibly every night, the gopher quits the 

 burrow and sallies forth into the open air, foraging for grain and other 

 foods not obtainable underground. These it crams into its pouches, 

 then retires to its burrow^ to consume them. The cover of night is 

 essential to these expeditions; they are seldom made in broad daylight, 

 though they may be undertaken in twilight or by the light of the 

 moon." The present writer has been told that in California different 

 species of pocket gophers have been occasionally observed above ground 

 at night. 



Mr. Light in experimenting on methods of trapping in the same 

 locality (North Berkeley) has found that gophers will follow ditches. 

 By digging a small trench and sinking into the earth empty oil cans 

 as pitfalls, a method also used in trapping moles, he has been successful 

 in catching a number of pocket gophers. This is further evidence that 

 gophers travel about on top of the ground at night to a greater extent 

 than has hitherto been supposed. 



This habit of quitting the burrow at night would also seem to be 

 substantiated by the fact that barn owls capture large numbers of 

 pocket gophers. One of these birds has been recorded as capturing 

 as many as fifteen gophers in a single night. It hardly seems probable 

 that so large a number could be obtained were not some of them picked 

 up on top of the ground. 



Unlike most of the strictly nocturnal rodents, the pocket gopher 

 may often be seen feeding in the daytime, especially if the day be a 

 cloudy one. A quivering plant, on the roots of which the gopher is 

 feeding, or a momentary glimpse of a dark head disappearing down 

 a hole, is usually the only evidence to be noted. It is very seldom, 

 if ever, that a gopher is seen outside of his burrow during daylight, 

 except when flooded out by irrigation. The writer's only experience 

 in this regard was in a newly ploughed field, where he found a large 

 gopher wandering about in one of the furrows. It had doubtless been 

 ploughed out, or its burrow had been disturbed by the ploughing. 

 In the endeavor to reach a food plant a gopher will sometimes go as 

 much as six inches from the mouth of the burrow, but it will dart back 

 in alarm at the slightest disturbance. In the late summer a circular 

 area of a radius of about the distance from the rump to the nose of a 



