530) 
land than thestriped gopher. My own experience is that while they are 
perhaps more apt to take up their quarters in the immediate vicinity 
of barns and farmhouses, they are at the same time far more diffi- 
cult to approach in the open. They are almost sure to move if the 
grass or other shelter over their burrows is cut, or if the ground is 
disturbed by cultivation. They are hence continually shifting their 
location, often returning to the same place after an absence of some 
weeks. 
There is a common opinion in this vicinity that this species 1s 
driven off by the striped gopher. I have never seen the two species 
together, though very frequently colonies of each may be found 
within a few rods. I know of no proof as to which can drive off the 
other. 
The species is decidedly gregarious, nearly always being found in 
colonies. As their burrows each have several openings and these 
are conspicuously marked by the dirt thrown out, a colony becomes a 
great nuisance in a hay or grain field. The conspicuousness of these 
burrows and of the animals themselves has aroused the animosity of 
the farmers and hastened the destruction of the gophers. 
My own data are too incomplete for absolute proof, but I am in- 
clined to believe that a census of the gray gophers in the county 
would show their abundance in the different habitats to be in the 
following descending order: moraine bluff, till plain, and cleared 
pasture. I have never seen them elsewhere, though I presume that 
they may be found in the borders of woodlands. 
The food is largely vegetable, consisting of grain, seeds, and 
other vegetable matter. The exact nature of this part of the 
food will of course vary with the habitat, but may be quite largely 
grain. Bailey, as the result of an examination of twenty-nine 
stomachs, found that over thirty per cent. of the food was animal 
matter—largely insects. They are known to kill birds, young 
chickens, and small mammals, and even gray gopher hair has been 
found in the stomach.* 
They store up grain and seeds for winter, as much as half a peck 
of oats having been found in a burrow under a shock in September. 
It seems certain, however, that they hibernate during the middle of 
winter. They are seldom seen here after October or earlier than 
* The Prairie Ground-Squirrels, or Spermophiles, of the Mississippi Valley. 
Bull. No. 4, Div. Orn. and Mamm., U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 56, 57. 
