Bulletin 340] 



CONTROL OP THE POCKET GOPHER 



345 



The trap should have a wire or light chain attached to it and 

 fastened to a chunk of stove-wood or, better still, an old worn-out 

 stewpan which will rattle should you forget and run over the set trap 

 with a harrow or cultivator. Coyotes and house-cats dislike the noise, 

 also, and do not drag the trap far when they rob it. In case only 

 one trap is available when the main run is found, a careful watch will 

 often, but not always, reveal one or more little flies emerging from 

 the run where it is first opened. These flies seem to have a direct rela- 

 tion to the gopher, as experiments have shown that the side that they 

 come from is the one occupied at that time by the gopher and hence 

 the place to set the trap. Traps should be visited morning and 

 evening, or oftener. 



Special Sets 



Individual gophers will frequently be found that refuse to enter 

 any sort of trap. These gophers are generally old males and are likely 

 to be the ones that do most of the gnawing on fruit trees. When one 

 of these old-timers repeatedly fills the trap with dirt, a special method 

 becomes necessary to catch him. ]\Ioles also may be captured in this 

 way. Take a Macabee trap (fig. 3a) and move the treadle forward 

 about an inch and a half, placing the wire which carries the treadle 

 beloiv, instead of above, the two longitudinal wires. Cut off the wire 

 trigger to meet this change (fig. 3&) . Then bend the treadle backwards 

 at right angles to its former position (fig. 4) so that it will lie parallel 

 with the trap (fig. 4c), instead of sticking up at right angles and ob- 

 structing the runway (as in fig. 4&) . Set the trap so that it will spring 

 easily. Put a pinch of loose cotton under the treadle to keep the dirt 

 out, and when the trap has been placed in the run take a stick and 

 cover the whole trap with a thin layer of loose dirt. Another method 

 is to take a recently caught female and rub the reproductive parts on 

 the face of the treadle of the regular Macabee trap. A few drops of 

 urine may be squeezed out during the process, but this only adds to 

 the efiicacy of the decoy. If all else fails catch a gopher snake and 

 turn him loose in the run. 



After you have put in poison or traps, the tops of all the gopher 

 mounds should be kicked off, so that when you make your next round 

 the newly made mounds will show where gophers remain and where 

 to put out more poison or traps. 



