14 



POCKET GOPHERS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



but frequently the spring plowing turns out an untouched and moldy 

 store left from the preceding year. Of course the supply of food 

 encountered m extending their tunnels determines whether the stores 

 shall be drawn upon. 



Food. — The food consists chiefly of roots, tubers, and other rather 

 hard vegetable substances, though grass and the succulent parts of 

 plants arc sometimes eaten. In agricultural districts the animals are 

 highly injurious, destroying potatoes and other tubers in large quanti- 

 ties, and gnawing oft the roots of fruit trees. When a burrow strikes 

 the roots of a tree, it is carried around among them until one after 

 another -the smaller ones are cut off and eaten and the bark stripped 

 from the larger ones so that the tree is almost invariably killed. If 

 the tree is not large every root is sometimes cutoff, and the first breeze 

 tips it over. 



Drink. — So far as known Pocket Gophers do not drink. Like other 

 rodents of arid regions they obtain the necessary water from the plants 

 on which they feed. Persons who have kept Gophers in confinement — 

 Dr. Goode, Dr. Merriam, Professor Herrick, and Mr. J. B. Parvin — have 

 never been able to make them drink. 



Use of pouches. — Though their eyes are small and their range of 

 vision limited, the Gophers lose little thereby in the dark underground 

 passages. Touch, taste, and smell, take the place of sight as guides in 

 selecting the roots with which they are constantly coming in contact 

 while excavating their endless tunnels. They have broad, chisel-like 

 teeth for cutting these roots, and large, fur-lined pockets in their cheeks 

 in which to carry their food. Under cover of overhanging vegetation 

 they fill these pouches with green leaves and stems to carry back and 

 eat at leisure in their holes. In half a minute enough food for a good 

 meal may be collected and stowed away, while a much longer* time 

 would be required to eat the same where collected. This arrangement 

 is especially important to the Gophers from the fact that their sight is 

 not keen. Probably their vision is better at night, or at least during 

 the twilight, for then they are most active. 



Chipmunks, squirrels, and ground squirrels take food in their mouths 

 And with the tongue push it out-bet ween the teeth into an elastic pouch, 

 just as boys put marbles m their cheeks. In the squirrels and chip- 

 munks the cheek pouches communicate with the mouth. In the Pocket 

 Gopher (also in all species of pocket mice and kangaroo rats) the 

 pom-In s open from the outside along the front of the cheeks. They 

 extend back under the skin to the shoulders, are lined with short hair, 

 and are enveloped by muscles. The way in which Gophers fill their 

 cheek pouches is thus described by Dr. Merriam in the technical paper 

 already referred to: 



A live Geomy* from Vernon. Texas, lias been carefully observed for the purpose of 

 ascertaining how the reserve food is placed in the cheek pouches. The animal soon 

 became sufficiently tame to eat freely from the hand, and was commonly fed bi'ts of 



