1869.] 191 [Allen. 



often sees their unwelcome hillocks thrown up night after night in his 

 garden, or within a few feet of his door. As their burrows are always 

 closed, few persons know how to trap them. A few farmers have been 

 successful in poisoning them with strychnine, and now and then one is 

 shot. To shoot them it is necessary to open their burrows and 

 watch with a gun kept in readiness to fire the instant they appear 

 at the opening to close it, as they show their head only, and for 

 merely an instant. The gopher will allow no light to enter its bur- 

 row, and when it is broken into it hastens to repair the breach. In 

 trapping them an opening is made into their galleries, through which 

 a small steel trap is inserted as far as it conveniently can be with the 

 hand, and the opening then partially closed. The animal hastening 

 to close the opening must generally pass over the trap. Occasionally, 

 however, the trap is found pushed up into the opening and firmly 

 wedged there with the impacted earth, in which case it is usually un- 

 sprung. The gopher is hence often credited with a degree of cun- 

 ning far beyond what it possesses, the safe removal of the trap being 

 purely accidental on the part of the animal. As the burrows are 

 extensive, with many branches, it is impossible to tell on which side 

 of the opening the occupant may be, and hence coming from the side 

 opposite to that where the trap is placed, it often succeeds in closing 

 the hole without being captured. 1 



This animal is said to be unable to swim, and that it is often 

 drowned in its burrows, when they are inundated by the sudden rise 

 of the prairie streams. 2 Whether or not large rivers form impassable 

 barriers to it, it seems to be well substantiated that while this animal 

 occurs on the Iowa side of the Mississippi and in central Illinois, or 

 throughout that part of the latter State south and east of the Illinois 

 river, it does not exist in that portion situated between the Illinois 

 and the Mississippi. Mr. Kennicott refers to his having heard this 

 reported, but he was unable to vouch for the truthfulness of the ac- 

 count. When in this section of Illinois, however, I was repeatedly 

 informed by competent and trustworthy observers who had resided in 

 this part of the State since its first settlement, and who had traversed 

 it extensively, that the pocket gopher did not exist in that portion of 

 Illinois between these rivers. This fact seems the more strange when 



1 For a detailed account of the habits of this interesting species, see Kennicott's 

 papers on the Mammals of Illinois, in the Patent Office Report on Agriculture for 

 1857, p. 72. 



2 E. Kennicott. Patent Office Rep., Agriculture, 1857, p. 75. 



