34 



HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



the Rat hides itself under tlieir protection, and eats away their 

 tender shoots. 



Like the mole, the Gopher throws up little hillocks at irre- 

 gular intervals, sometimes twenty or thirty feet apart, and 

 sometimes crowded closely together. The nest of the Gopher is 

 made in a burrow constructed expressly for the purpose, and is 

 placed in a small globular chamber about eight inches in 

 diameter. The bed on which the mother and her young repose 



CAN.VDA POUCHED RAT. 



(Plan of BuTTQw ) 



is made of dried herbage and fur plucked from the body. 

 This chamber is the point from which a great number of pas- 

 sages radiate, and from these other tunnels are driven. These 

 radiating burrows evidently serve two purposes, enabling the 

 animal to escape in any direction when alarmed, and serving to 

 conduct it to its feeding grounds. 



In two instances where the Gophers had entered a garden, 

 their tunnels were traced throughout the greater part of their 

 extfiut, and were foimd to be driven at an average depth of a 

 foot or eighteen inches below the surface, except when they 



