JUMPING MOUSE AND POCKET GOPHER 



93 



13 inches, and weighs S pounds. It is a water- 

 loving animal, almost as much so as the musk- 

 rat, and its thick, brown fur is valuable. Under 

 proper conditions it is easily kept in captivity. 



The smallest rodent in America is the Least 

 Pocket Mouse, 1 of the Rocky Mountain region, 

 which has a total length of head and body, 1$ 

 inches; tail, 2f inches. 



The best swimmer of all rat-like animals is th e 

 Muskrat. 3 



The best climber is the Tree Rat, 3 of southern 

 India. 



The handsomest rat or mouse in the New World 

 is the Kangaroo Rat, of the southwestern United 

 States, figured on the opposite page. 



The most humorous of all rat-like animals is 

 the Trading Rat, described on page 89, which 

 delights in playing practical jokes upon its hu- 

 man neighbors. 



The meanest of all rodents is the brown-coated 

 Domestic Rat, the pest of civilization every- 

 where, which was sent to man as a perpetual 

 punishment for his crimes against harmless wild 

 creatures all over the world. 



THE POCKET GOPHER FAMILY. 



Geomyidae. 



The Red Pocket Gopher 4 is the most im- 

 portant representative of a large Family of bur- 

 rowing rodents which does great damage to the 

 crops and lands of American farmers. When- 

 ever you see a brown-coated burrowing animal, 

 the length of a small rat, but twice as thick, 

 with a big pouch in the skin of each cheek, a 

 swinish appetite, a set of long claws like burglar's 

 tools on each fore foot and a most viUanous 

 countenance and temper, you may know that it 

 is a Pocket Gopher. The pockets in his cheeks 

 are to enable him to carry extra large quantities 

 of stolen potatoes and seeds. When once you 

 have learned the true character and habits of 

 this creature, you will, without being asked, care- 

 fully refrain from calling any ground-squirrel a 

 "Gopher." 



Most wild animals have some redeeming qual- 

 ities, but this cannot make good a claim to one. 

 Gophers are not only thieves and robbers, but 

 they are so ill-tempered that they even hate each 

 other, and the old ones usually are found living 



1 Per-og-nath'us fla'vus. ' Fi'ber zi-beth'i-cus. 

 3 Mus ru-fes'cens. * Oe'o-mys bur-sa'ri-us. 



alone. When two captives are placed together, 

 they usually fight fiercely until one is killed. 

 Their teeth and front claws are very powerful, 

 and working together they do great damage, 

 in many different ways. 



As a Family, Pocket Gophers inhabit the whole 

 United States west of Indiana and the lower 

 Mississippi, and also a large part of Alabama, 



>< 





JUMPING MOUSE. 



Georgia and Florida. Three genera and about 

 thirty-three species are recognized, and while 

 some are smaller than others, and some are gray 

 or black instead of brown, their appetites and 

 habits are all equally objectionable. They spoil 

 meadows by throwing up innumerable hillocks 

 of loose earth; they devour great quantities of 

 vegetable crops, and also corn and small grain; 

 they eat the roots of young fruit-trees of nearly 

 all kinds, and the}' destroy canals and irrigating 

 ditches by honeycombing their banks. With 

 incisor teeth that in sharpness and strength are 

 like steel chisels, a Gopher can pare off all the 

 roots from a young tree quite as neatly as a man 

 pares potatoes. 



Our type species, the Red Pocket Gopher "is," 

 says Mr. Vernon Bailey, "of much greater eco- 

 nomic importance than all the other species 

 combined, for the reason that its home is in the 

 fertile prairie region of the Mississippi valley," 



