STRIPED SPERMOPHILE. 



37 



is a great pest on the farm. When corn is just peeping through the 

 ground they will follow a row and pull up the hills and eat oft" the 

 kernel. Last year I found the hills pulled up for rods in one place. 

 They are also destructive to wheat. My father had a wheatfield by 

 the side of a new piece of ground which was full of gopher burrows. I 

 was set to trapping them and found in their holes heads of wheat which 

 had been entirely shelled out. The breaking was strewn with straws 

 and wheat heads which had been shelled out and the grain carried 

 into their holes." Mr. John 1ST. Houghton,, of Grinnell, Poweshiek 

 .County, says (March 23. 1891) : u Spermophilus tridecemlineatus is very 

 abundant. During the past summer I have seen twenty-five during a 

 walk of a quarter of a mile. As to its destructive traits, it is promi- 

 nent chiefly in destroying young corn. * * * The past summer it 

 destroyed a half acre in apiece of 4 acres belonging to me. I have 

 seen it catch and consume the cabbage butterfly repeatedly, and have 

 also watched it digging for cutworms. These are cases of traits ben- 

 eficial to the farmer, I am positive." 



Nebraska. — Mr. Lawrence Bruner, of Lincoln, reports three species 

 present, Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, S. spilosoma obsoletus, and S. 

 franJclini, of which the first is by far the most common and very 

 destructive to young corn. In Buffalo County Mr. R. W. Thatcher, of 

 Gibbon, says: "The Striped Gopher, ' Line-tailed Spermophile'* and 

 badger are all destructive to grain. The first two are very much 

 more common this year than ever before. They work much alike and 

 mostly upon corn, digging down to the seed and then eating it. They 

 have been known to follow the planter and dig up every hill for several 

 rods. They do not stop when the corn sprouts, but continue to dig 

 until the seed has all been absorbed. Formerly they lived in holes 

 on the prairie, and worked only on the edge of a field, but this year 

 [1888] they have dug their holes in the fields, eating the corn all around 

 them. They occasion great damage to the corn crop and are killed 

 mercilessly by all the farmers. We have a field of corn Avhich was 

 planted May 23. Owing to the cold, backward spring it was late in 

 coming up, and we could not begin working it until June 9. During the 

 first day's work I counted the number of hills dug up in several rows. 

 I found the average to be about forty -five hills to the row of 120 rods. 

 The next time I was at work I saw a gopher catch and kill a field 

 mouse, which is something I have never seen them do before. I do 

 not know what caused the gopher to do so, for as soon as I approached 

 it, it dropped the mouse and ran into its hole. The mouse was badly 

 bitten." [Letter dated June 19, 1888.] 



From Turlington, Otoe County, Mr. William X. Hunter writes : "The 

 Striped Gopher (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus) is the worst enemy of 



* The true Line-tailed Spermophile (Spermophilus grammurus) is a Rocky Mountain 

 species and does not occur in Nebraska. The species here referred to is undoubtedly 

 Franklin's Spermophile (S. franklini). Gibbon is near the western limit of its range. 



