PARKS — NEOTOMA IN SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS 249 
No permanent food supply seems to be laid up regularly for winter 
use as is the case with the northern rodents. The climate is such that 
there is a constant supply of food of some kind available the year round. 
The conclusion is that when food is found in the nest it is there for 
the feeding of the young. During many months of the year when 
there are acorns to be found the rats are industrious in gathering them 
for food; but they are in the greater number of cases consumed where 
found. On two occasions in the fall of 1919 when examining nests 
I found acorns of live oaks stored for use directly in front of the breed- 
ing nests. The little nests had contained young within a short time 
of my visit and fragments of freshly eaten acorns seemed to indicate 
that the young had eaten of them within an hour of my opening the 
nests. In these piles I counted over five hundred acorns without tak- 
ing more than half of them. 
In one nest after removing the acorns I found a peculiar arrangement 
of the underground passage in which the young probably took refuge. 
The central chamber was quite large, the breeding nest was at one side 
with a passage beside it, and the acorns were piled on the opposite side 
with a mat made of the fine, long, tough twigs of a species of wild cherry 
beneath them. The main passage way passed directly beneath this 
mat and furnished the rats access to the pile of acorns without coming 
to the main chamber. 
Fungi form one of the most important foods of the rodents 
here, if not the most important. One variety or another is to be 
found through a very long season if the rains are sufficient. It 
is in those vdnters when the rainfall is light that the rats make the 
greatest use of acorns and other foods. The botanical field work that 
I am doing relates to the groups of fungi which grow under the sur- 
face of the ground or are buried under the leaves of the forest, and 
are practically unknown in this country to any but a few scientists. 
The collector of this kind of fungi in America is handicapped to a 
very great extent as he must choose his working place at random or 
by instinct. In Europe where truffles as well as others of this class 
are abundant, the fungi are strongly aromatic and certain animals 
are trained to search for the hidden plants. Unfortunately, while 
truffles in California are abundant, they are not in any sense aromatic. 
The plants give no evidence of their presence and must be located by 
some other means than by smell. We have another group of plants 
which may be called false truffles (i.e. Hymenogastrales) , since they 
grow after the manner of the real truffles and some of the many species 
