1897.] The Pocket, or Pouched Gopher. 117 
here when the country was far wetter than now—in fact when 
the country was almost one great “slough.” 
Others believe them to be the “ burial mounds of the In- 
dians;” while still others of these writers attribute their origin 
to various causes. 
In Fig. 2 is given a sectional view (and it conveys a good 
general idea of internal structure of nearly all of them) of one 
of these mounds as explored by the writer. 
In nearly all cases the old, and sometimes recent, nests of 
this animal is found in the large expansions of the burrows in 
the mounds; with sometimes the decayed remains of stored 
food. 
In a few cases it has been found that this animal has in 
recent times, taken up its abode in these mounds and here 
reared its young. 
In one case, in 1895, near Rockford, Iowa, there was found 
in one of these mounds what was pronounced to be human 
bones, by a Physician at Rockford. 
As to the correctness of this identification, however, I am un- 
able to state, not having personally examined the relics. If, 
however, they were undoubted human bones, they then simply 
represent an intrusive Indian burial here during the early days 
of the country. 
As a general rule, no small hillocks are thrown up by the 
Pocket Gopher, or seen near, the large mounds herein treated 
of. 
The Pocket Gopher is usually considered a great pest; 
although not altogether because of the quantity of grain, etc., 
eaten. 
They do not often destroy much grain by eating it, though 
they not infrequently get into a shock of wheat or barley and 
‘eat the heads of a few bundles and cut the bands of many 
others, and raise little hillocks in the shocks, from seven to 
fourteen inches in height and ten to twenty inches in diameter. 
Considerable damage is done by this animal in gardens, both 
by eating the vegetables and covering many others with their 
mounds of earth. “ When their holes run through a hill of 
