THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS 465 



nearly one inch in breadth, and about the diameter of the 

 body of the animal. Possessed of an exquisite sense of 

 hearing and of feehng the external pressure of objects 

 traveUing on the ground, they stop their labors instantane- 

 ously on the least alarm ; but if you retire from fifteen to 

 twenty paces to the windward of the hole, and wait for a 

 quarter of an hour or so, you see the " Gopher " (the name 

 given to it by the Missourians — Americans) raising the 

 earth with its back and shoulders, and forcing it out for- 

 ward, leaving the aperture open during the process, and 

 from which it at times issues a few steps, cuts the grasses 

 around, with which it fills its pouches, and then retires to 

 its hole to feed upon its spoils ; or it sometimes sits up on 

 its haunches and enjoys the sun, and it may then be shot, 

 provided you are quick. If missed you see it no more, 

 as it will prefer altering the course of its burrow and 

 continuing its labors in quite a different direction. They 

 may be caught in common steel-traps, and two of them 

 were thus procured to-day ; but they then injure the foot, 

 the hind one. They are also not uncommonly thrown 

 up by the plough, and one was caught in this manner. 

 They have been known to destroy the roots of hundreds 

 of young fruit-trees in the course of a few days and nights, 

 and will cut roots of grown trees of the most valued kinds, 

 such as apple, pear, peach, plum, etc. They differ greatly 

 in their size and also in their colors, according to age, but 

 not in the sexes. The young are usually gray, the old of 

 a dark chestnut, glossy and shining brown, very difficult 

 to represent in a drawing. The opinion commonly re- 

 ceived and entertained, that these Pouched Rats fill their 

 pouches with the earth of their burrows, and empty them 

 when at the entrance, is, I think, quite erroneous ; about 

 a dozen which were shot in the act of raising their mounds, 

 and killed at the very mouth of their burrows, had no 

 earth in any of these sacs ; the fore feet, teeth, nose, and 

 the anterior portion of the head were found covered with 



VOL. I. — 30 



