366 University of California Publications in Zoology [ VoL - 12 



brown ; a black patch around the ear. Specimens in summer pelage 

 are lighter fulvous above, with the dark bases of the hairs not as 

 prominent; underparts varying from ochraceous to light buff; feet 

 and tail whitish. Very few of the specimens are in good pelage, 

 the majority being in ragged transition state from winter pelage 

 to summer, or back again to winter, apparently, before the whole 

 summer molt was completed. The impression gained was that 

 gophers living in cultivated fields, for instance, of alfalfa, accom- 

 plish their molts much more completely than animals living in 

 wild land, which, except in summer, are harder put to it to obtain 

 food. 



Our largest series of pinetorum was secured at Rush Creek. It 

 was while trapping there that we decided that gophers are sensi- 

 tive to smell, for traps set with bare hands were not so liable to 

 catch anything as those set with gloved hands and the hole excavated 

 with a trowel. Miss Alexander successfully tried baiting the traps 

 by covering them and the entrance to the hole with a species of 

 mint of which the gophers seemed to be fond. With these methods 

 the animals were easily caught. At Jackson Lake we were par- 

 ticularly struck by the winter workings of the gophers. The snow 

 was just off the ground and there had been as yet no cattle around 

 to trample down the innumerable serpentine ridges which covered 

 the open ground and extended even among the shrubbery under 

 the pine trees. These ridges, or "earth plugs", consist of the 

 earth which in winter is pushed up into the snow from under- 

 ground passages, and they prove the continued activity of the 

 gophers even during cold weather. 



Dipodomys californicus trinitatis, new subspecies 

 Trinity Kangaroo Rat 



Type.— Male adult; no. 12860, Mus. Vert. Zool.; Helena, Trinity 

 County, California, altitude 1405 feet ; February 18, 1911 ; collected 

 by A. M. Alexander; original no. 1159. 



Subspecific characters. — As compared with Dipodomys californi- 

 cus californicus, coloration dark; thigh patches small; nasals long 

 and heavy anteriorly. 



Coloration. — Upperparts from between ears to band across 

 thigh, bistre, suffused with dark buff yellow, brightening into 



