6 



FARMEES^ BULLETIN 832. 



heaps are the more s}Tnmetrical and are built up, volcano fashion, 

 by successive upheavals beneath and through the center of the pile, 

 the soil, in compact little masses, rolling down the sides from the 

 simmiit (see fig. 3). The pocket gopher, on the other hand, brings 

 up the soil excavated in its workings and dumps it on the surface in 

 armfuls, thus forming low, semicircular or fan-shaped accumulations 

 of fine dirt more or less to one side of the burrow exit. 



Many of the deeper runs of the mole are highways of common 

 traffic, used often by a number of individuals and frequented also by 

 shrews and certain species of field mice. Good catches usually may 



B674M 



Fig. 4. — Mounds such as are shown in figure 3 thickly dot tlie inole-inlesled areas of the Pacific coast region 

 of Washington and Oregon, They are not usually found in areas frequented by the eastern mole. 



be expected from continued use of the trap in these highways, which 

 commonly follow fences, hedges, walks, plant rows, and the ridges of 

 open fields. Such situations are the more frequented by the mole 

 because they offer some concealment or shelter and are less often dis- 

 turbed by the activities of man. It is especially desirable to trap in 

 such places when one wishes to avoid, in the operation, the disfigure- 

 ment of lawns and garden beds infested ])y moles that have come in 

 from the main runways. 



It wiU pay to set traps on ridges over temporary hunting paths 

 only when these have been constructed recently in damp soil, or, at 

 least, have not ])ecome so dry that the mole no longer finds profit in 



