1918] Camp: Burrows of the Rodent Aplodontia 523 
the Feather River at Big Meadows. He says the burrows resembled 
those of muskrats and were in clayey banks. On Mount Shasta, 
Osgood (in Merriam, 1899, p. 93) found at most only a single pair 
of mountain beavers living in one place. 
Price (1894, p. 328) notes that at the big-tree grove near Red 
Point, Placer County, ‘‘two small colonies were seen in bogey land 
about springs.’’ Burrows were noted ‘‘in the bottom of a ravine 
among dense beds of moss, thickly shaded with tangled bushes.’’ 
Stephens (1906, pp. 94-95) speaks of burrows of California 
SCALE 
— 
ONE METER 
7 — 
PROFILE THROUGH LINE A-D *.” TnREE FEET 
Fig. 3. Plan and partial elevation of burrow system of Aplodontia rufa 
californica exeavated at Chinquapin, Yosemite National Park, California. 
mountain beaver that were fifty yards or more in length. He observed 
the animals on the headwaters of the Carson River in Alpine County. 
Here, he says, they ‘‘live in wet springy land in canyons and on 
mountain sides where suitable springs occur, usually at considerable 
altitudes’’ [8000 feet]. Most of the entrances were under clumps of 
willow. Stephens also saw where watercourses had been diverted by 
the burrows. 
Muir (1909, p. 201) deseribes how Aplodontia rufa californica 
in the Yosemite National Park ‘‘digs canals and controls the flow of 
small streams under the sod’’; ‘‘and it is startling,’’ he says, ‘‘ when 
