the nest of the gopher bursarius or pouched," says Anderson. There seems to be a distinction here properly drawn between the Missouri "gopher" (Geomys bursarius), and the Wisconsin prairie-squirrel,—the name "gopher" describing the burrowing of the creature, and signifying a gray squirrel in Canada, a striped squirrel in Wisconsin, and a pouched rat in Missouri; also a snake in Georgia, and a turtle in Florida. Immediately after noticing this squirrel, sitting erect by his hole, Thoreau observes a ribbon-snake in a swamp, and follows an Indian path over the prairie, where grain had been threshed with a machine. He notes that the more ornamental trees are poplars and willows, and that in Lake Calhoun are bass and bream for fish. On the prairie near are "a great number of goldenrods."
Returning to Minnehaha, he describes the striped spermophile, S. tridecemlineatus,[1] thus:
Dirty grayish-white beneath,—above, dirty brown, with six dirty, tawny, or clay-
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