HOWELL — FOSSOKIAL MAMMALS 
19 
SUEFACE WANDEEINGS OF FOSSOEIAL MAMMALS 
By a. Brazier Howell 
The writer had always thought it an accepted theory that certain 
fossorial mammals move about on the surface of the ground to some 
extent, but recent enquiry among mammalogists has brought to light 
considerable skepticism on this point. Published proof is meager, and 
the most conclusive evidence that has yet appeared seems to be that 
presented by Dr. H. B. Bryant (Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., XII, 2, 1913, 
pp. 25“29), who found a number of gophers that had been caught in a 
gutter full of tar. It may be argued that these animals were forcibly 
driven from their burrows by a flood of irrigation water; but, under the 
circumstance, it is more likely that the advance of the dry season had 
rendered the soil in which they were working too hard for their taste, 
and that they were seeking new pastures. 
For ten years I lived on my orange grove at Covina, Los Angeles 
County, California, where gophers {Thomomys hottce pallescens not 
typical) were so common that I have taken 300 on ten acres within 
six months. During the greater part of the year the ground was scrupu- 
lously and flnely cultivated, and not a weed allowed to grow; hence, 
gopher mounds were readily found as soon as formed. One of our 
chief cares was to find every one of these animals that entered the grove 
from the surrounding territory and catch it at once. As there were no 
other growing things, each gopher invariably made for an orange tree 
to feed on the tender bark of the roots, and if he happened to strike 
and girdle the tap root, sixty dollars worth of damage was done. So 
one may well believe that we exercised the utmost vigilance to keep 
the grove free from these pests, and except during the winter, when a 
leguminous cover crop was grown, mighty few gophers remained un- 
detected upon the ranch for more than twenty four hours. For this 
reason, it was impossible for a gopher to work its way, underground, 
into the center of the grove before it was discovered. They habitually 
entered from a piece of uncultivated land on the south; from a pasture 
on the east, for the most part unirrigated; and from the weedy borders 
of a highway on the west. Of course, the usual mode of entry to the 
property was by short extensions of the burrows until the boundary 
was crossed, but in at least two score instances, their workings suddenly 
appeared from a few yards to as much as 380 feet from the nearest 
cover. And at that, they traveled over bare ground, where, one would 
imagine, there would be slight attraction to lead them on. Six or eight 
