OCT , 1899. ] STREAMS. 23 
of smaller plants. These places, in Mud Creek and Ash Creek canyons, 
are the homes of the mountain showt’l or sewellel (Aplodontia major), a 
curious bob-tailed rodent resembling a large muskrat, which lives in a 
labyrinth of subterranean passages in wet ground, and cuts and drags 
to its burrows bundles of coarse plants on which it feeds. Weasels 
(Putorius arizonensis) are usually found in the aplodontia colonies 
and it is safe to assume that their presence there is the most serious 
factor in the life of the rightful owners of the land. 
STREAMS. 
The streams that come from glaciers are rapid, turbid, and muddy, 
and have cut deep V-shaped canyons down the steep slopes of the 
mountain. Those that come from melting snow are clear as crystal 
Fig. 10.—Heather meadow on upper Squaw Creek, showing concentration of vegetation near stream, 
and usually flow on the surface or in shallow channels hardly more 
than a foot or two in depth. They are smaller and less constant than 
those from the glaciers, and in times of high water carry so much 
gravel and pumice that they often block their own shallow channels 
and overflow, cutting new courses near the old ones. During the fluc- 
tuations incident to the irregular melting of snow they often reopen the 
older channels and at the same time retain the new, so that on the 
higher slopes it is not unusual for a mountain rivulet to occupy several 
beds at the same time. These are commonly separated by intervals of 
a few feet or a few rods, and the spaces between are often covered with 
patches of red heather, dotted with flowering plants of many kinds. 
