Virginia Opossum
The opossum is common in and near small towns and cultivated areas at the Pacific base of the mountain range and does not thrive away from human habitation; extensive trapping in the coastal sage and chaparral belts produced no specimens except immediately adjacent to citrus groves. Pequegnat (1951:47) mentions that opossums in the Santa Ana Mountains of southern California are in the lower parts of the larger canyons, especially near human habitation.
Specimens examined.—Los Angeles County: Claremont, 1600 ft., 2 (PC).
Family TALPIDAE
Scapanus latimanus occultus Grinnell and Swarth
California Mole
Workings of moles were found on the Pacific slope of the mountains from 1600 feet at Claremont up to 7500 feet on Blue Ridge, and on the Pacific slope beneath basin sagebrush in Cajon Canyon one mile from desert slope Joshua-tree flats, but not on the desert slope, although moles probably occur on that slope in some of the places where there is suitable habitat.
Near Camp Baldy in the sandy soil beneath groves of alders moles seemed to be especially abundant. Although common on the coastal face of the range, moles shunned compact, dry, or rocky soils. In the greasewood chaparral one-half mile west of the mouth of Palmer Canyon, where the soil was hard and rocky, mole tunnels were in soft soil that had accumulated at the edge of a fire road beneath a steep road cut. The assumption is that this accumulation contained insects attractive, as food, to the moles.
Specimens examined, 2: Los Angeles County: Camp Baldy, 4200 ft., 1(PC); Claremont, 1600 ft., 1(PC).