Indian summer. Balzac's comparison to ripe womanhood. The significant worn walk round the mean man's field; its crooked outline impressively striking. All in all, a white day. Memory of it supplies these notes. They might be expanded into an essay. The country, the country! Though the man who would truly relish and enjoy it must be previously furnished with a large and various stock of ideas, which he must be capable of turning over in his own mind, of comparing, varying, and contemplating upon with pleasure; he must so thoroughly have seen the world as to cure him of being over fond of it; and he must have so much good sense and virtue in his own heart as to prevent him from being disgusted with his own reflections, or uneasy in his own company. Alas!
[A] By permission.
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| FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. | GOPHER. ⅚ Life-size. | COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. |
THE GOPHER.
THE name of gopher, according to Brehm, is applied in some American localities to various other widely variant rodents. The zoölogists, who first described the animal, obtained their specimens from Indians, who had amused themselves by cramming both cheek pouches full of earth, distending them to such a degree that if the animal had walked the pouches would have trailed on the earth. These artificially distended pouches obtained for the gopher its name; the taxidermists who prepared the dead specimens endeavored to give them what was supposed to be a life-like appearance by following the practice of the Indians in distending the cheek pouches, and the artists who delineated the animal followed the models which were accessible to them, but too truly in their drawings. Owing to these circumstances, the pictures of gophers of even recent date represent really monstrous animals, when they honestly intend to familiarize us with the gopher.
The gopher may be found east of the Rocky Mountains and to the west of the Mississippi river, between the thirty-fourth and fifty-second parallel of north latitude. It leads an underground life, digging tunnels in various directions. Tunnels, of old standing, says Brehm, are packed hard and firm from constant use. Lateral passages branch off at intervals. The main chamber is situated under the roots of a tree at a depth of about four and one-half feet; the entrance tunnel is sunk down to it with a spiral direction. This chamber is large, is lined with soft grass, and serves for a nesting and sleeping-place. The nest in which the young, numbering from five to seven, are born about the beginning of April, is lined with the hair of the mother. It is surrounded with circular passages from which the tunnels radiate. Gesner found that a passage leads from the nest to a larger hole, the storeroom, which is usually filled with roots, potatoes, nuts, and seeds. When throwing up the earth the gopher exposes itself to view as little as possible and immediately after accomplishing its purpose plunges back into its hole. According to Audubon it appears above ground to bask in the sun. We have seen it sit at the entrance to its den with an air of bold indifference to the approach of danger and then suddenly vanish under ground. Its acute sense of hearing and great power of scent protect it from surprises.