.POCKET GOPHERS 403 
The “ pockets ” for which these animals are distinguished 
extend along the sides of the head to the shoulders and open 
at the mouth, outside of the mouth cavity. They might be 
described as fur-lined cheek pouches used for carrying food 
to the storeroom in the burrow. There are over thirty species 
of these gophers, and they are distributed over our whole 
country except the section east of Indiana and north of Ala- 
bama. We are concerned with only two of these. 
The Red Pocket Gopher, or Mississippi Valley Pocket 
Gopher, is the most important species of all, because of the 
PockeT GOPHER 
great extent of the territory it inhabits. It is the big, brown- 
ish red gopher found in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, 
Minnesota, and the eastern part of the Dakotas, Nebraska, 
and Kansas. Only the one species inhabits this territory, 
as pocket gophers are too ill-tempered to live on neighborly 
terms with others. Even members of the same species hate 
one another, and it is said that when two captives are put in 
the same cage they usually fight until one is killed. 
The North Dakota Pocket Gopher or Gray Pocket Gopher 
ranges all over the state whose name it bears excepting the 
parts of the Red River Valley occupied by the preceding 
species. It is a smaller animal than the other, but probably 
not less destructive if allowed to do business on our farms. 
