Dee 
at least before and after these dates it was very stupid, stirring but 
little. At no time during the winter was it perfectly indifferent to 
touching, shaking, etc., but responded only by half opening its eyes 
and making a complaining or angry cry. It appeared to be half 
asleep, and, left alone, immediately fell into a dormant condition 
again. The temperature of the room was probably never below 60°, 
and often about 80°, all winter. Specimens dug out of the ground in 
midwinter are always fully dormant. In this latitude they remain 
holed in from October to March inclusive, and are seen but little for 
some weeks before and after that period. 
The exact relation of the striped gopher to the farmer, whether 
on the whole it does more good or evil, seems to be by no means 
certain. Although its burrows are abundant at times, they are so 
small, and, being without accumulations of dirt around the mouth, 
so inconspicuous that they can do but little harm. Its food, as 
that of rodents in general, is chiefly of vegetable origin—seeds, buds, 
grains, and parts of plants of all kinds. The grain that it eats in 
the fall is probably largely gleanings and represents but little loss 
to the farmer, being more than compensated for by the seeds of 
weeds destroyed. A more serious accusation, however, brought 
against it is that of taking the newly planted corn in the spring. 
It sometimes follows along the rows of corn just as it is sprouting, 
eating the kernels and thus destroying the crop. Although a por- 
tion of this damage sometimes attributed to the gophers is in reality 
done by grackles and crows, nevertheless the gophers do considerable 
injury in that way. On the university farm I have found by actual 
count about twenty per cent. of the first two or three rows of corn 
along the side of a field taken by them. This field was next to a 
piece of land that had been in pasture for some time, and which con- 
tained many gophers. 
But the gopher, like most of the rodents, is more or less carniv- 
orous, or at least insectivorous. Gillette found as the result of an 
examination of twenty-two stomachs of gophers taken from April 
19 to August 2 that forty-six per cent. of the contents was of insect 
origin. Some of these insects were predaceous beetles, and their 
destruction was a loss to the farmer; but there were a larger number 
of sod worms (Crambus larve) also found. The writer estimates 
that an average of twenty-six worms per day were eaten by each 
gopher between the above dates, or a total of 2730 worms for the 
