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The earth was bursting with green; the early flowers were turning the sunny slopes into coloured splashes of red and white and purple, and everything that had life was singing the fat whistlers on their rocks, the pompous little gophers on their mounds, the big bumblebees that buzzed from flower to flower, the hawks in the valley, and the eagles over the peaks.
They scattered in every direction. The boy was in pursuit. Shrieking, laughing, slashing, headlong he ran, nimble as the gophers themselves. It was wide open grassland, and An-ina contented herself with watching from the distance. It was the boy's game. His was the chase. Hers was the simple happiness of witnessing his enjoyment. "Gee!" An-ina started at the sound of the exclamation behind her.
On shallower soils the plant is apt to be short-lived through root troubles. Unirrigated alfalfa is also reduced by the incursions of gophers which flooding at least once a year will destroy. Alfalfa and Overflow. How long can alfalfa stand water without being drowned out? I have a piece of alfalfa on which the water will stand for considerable time in the winter time.
It has conducted field experiments for the purpose of devising and perfecting simple methods for holding in check the hordes of destructive rodents rats, mice, rabbits, gophers, prairie dogs, and ground squirrels which annually destroy crops worth many millions of dollars; and it has published practical directions for the destruction of wolves and coyotes on the stock ranges of the West, resulting during the past year in an estimated saving of cattle and sheep valued at upwards of a million dollars.
In our field, besides cattle, were geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits and hares in thousands, doves and quails in flocks, and gophers innumerable; frogs, toads, rats and mice; while bees, wasps, butterflies and moths, and myriads of other insects were simply pushing one another out of the way. It was a wonderful study. In Utah much difficulty was found in growing clover.
In the most barren cliffs and gulches there dwell a multitude of lesser animals, well-dressed, clear-eyed, happy little beasts wood-rats, kangaroo-rats, gophers, wood-mice, skunks, rabbits, bob cats, and many others, gathering food, or dozing in their sun-warmed dens. Lizards, too, of every kind and color are here enjoying life on the hot cliffs, and making the brightest of them brighter.
He recalled how kind and comrade-like she had been to him three months before when they had caught gophers together, and his spirits rose. "Yo there?" he asked again. Suddenly she came from her corner and attempted to pass him. Emboldened by the darkness, he put out his arms and stopped her, and she laughed gaily up at him. He laughed shyly back and dropped her arms.
Some of the animal forms yielded to the desire to fly, and wings appeared gradually, and we called it bird-life. Some felt a desire to burrow in the ground, and lo! came the moles, gophers, etc. It wanted a thinking creature, and Man with his wonderful brain was evolved. Evolution is more than a mere survival of the fittest; natural selection, etc.
It was the season when the caribou were keen-scented as foxes and swift as the wind. Only along the slopes lay the dinners they were sure of famine-day dinners of whistlers and gophers. Thor dug for them now, and in this digging Muskwa helped as much as he could.
"Did you sling clods at 'em?" demanded the eldest brother, again pounding the musket into the dirt. "Nearly slung my arm off," answered the little girl. The eldest brother grunted incredulously. "It's mighty funny," he said, "that the gophers liked your planting better 'n anybody else's." The little girl did not answer.
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