508 
The gray gopher also is not uncommon along the edge of the mo- 
raines, but is apparently more apt to wander into the lower land 
than the striped gopher 1s. House-mice and rats are as abundant 
here as anywhere if the proper shelter is present. The prairie-vole 
is sometimes abundant, especially in meadows that have been for 
some years 1n grass or clover. 
The sags in the moraines are usually occupied by a drainage 
ditch or natural watercourse, with a narrow border of waste land 
covered with rank vegetation. These belts are hiding-places for 
rabbits and .hunting-grounds for weasels. Muskrats and minks 
follow the watercourses to their very sources. 
WOODED BLUFFS. 
As we have said, the principal streams were originally bordered 
on each side by a strip of timber of varying width. Under wooded 
bluffs we include such portions of this timber as are in the immedi- 
ate vicinity of the streams or are practically continuous with wood- 
land that is so situated. Where the original belt of timber was 
broad, certain portions have been isolated in the process of defores- 
tation, and these isolated areas are much modified as regards both 
fauna and flora, and have been classed as groves. 
In the early days the woods formed an almost unbroken highway 
for large animals from the extensive forests of the south and east. 
Along them, bears, wildcats, timber-wolves, and possibly pumas, 
entered the county. .Later the last deer found refuge there. ) i= 
though these wooded belts have been greatly narrowed and much 
thinned, they are still practically continuous for many miles, and so 
furnish a large range of woodland, and are the chief retreat of nearly 
all the larger mammals still found in the county. Wolves have 
been found along the Sangamon River up to a recent date, and 
probably a few still exist there. Whatever foxes, red or gray, may 
yet be in the county must den in these woods. ‘They are the chief 
habitat of coons and opossums, although the latter have of late 
years taken to wandering long distances into the prairie. Skunks 
also are abundant in such localities, hunting extensively over the 
adjoining fields, but retreating to the bluff regions to dig their bur- 
rows. Kennicott stated in 1856, that the gray squirrel was re- 
stricted to the dense woods along the rivers. If there are any within 
the county limits, still in a state of nature, they are to be looked for 
