THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
Every one in the open western half of the United States and 
Canada is, however, familiar with their big relatives, the pocket 
gophers, so called because of their “pouches,” and 
also to distinguish them from the northern “striped 
gophers,” which are ground squirrels. They are about the 
size of large house rats, “of squat bunchy shape, with short 
thick limbs, a short tail, very small or rudimentary ears, small 
eyes, no appreciable neck, and thick blunt head.” Like the 
pocket mice they possess capacious pouches in each side of the 
head, which are not connected with the interior of the mouth, but 
open only by wide vertical slits beside the jaw; they are lined 
with fur, and in reality are deep infolds of the skin. Their 
loose inner walls meet behind the front teeth and prevent the 
dirt dislodged in tunneling from falling into the mouth and 
throat. These gophers are almost as completely subterranean 
as the mole, and their fore limbs, though not twisted and mis- 
shapen like the mole’s, are broad and strong, and provided with 
long digging claws. 
In his monograph * upon the group, Dr. Merriam tells us 
that in working their way through the ground they use the 
strong, overhanging, grooved incisors as picks to loosen the 
soil, while the fore feet scratch and push the earth backward 
until a large quantity has been loosened; the animal then turns 
around and pushes this back to an opening in the tunnel and 
out upon the surface, where a hillock is soon formed. In these 
runways the gophers trot backward as readily as forward; 
and the naked ratlike tail is so sensitive to touch that it gives 
instant warning of anything wrong. The food consists prin- 
cipally of roots, tubers, and other hard vegetable substances, 
but grass and juicy plants are sometimes eaten. Thus the 
animals may be highly mischievous, destroying potatoes and 
root crops, gnawing off the roots of fruit trees, and spoiling much 
ground in fields of grain or fodder by making water channels. 
They are busy hoarders, carrying away to underground store- 
426 
Gophers. 
