"Right," said Old Mother Nature. "Now I am going to tell you of
one of my little plowmen who also lives in the Far West but prefers
the great plains to the high mountains, though he is sometimes
found in the latter. He is Grubby the Gopher, a member of the
same order the rest of you belong to, but of a family quite his
own. He is properly called the Pocket Gopher, and way down in
the Southeast, where he is also found, he is called a Salamander,
though what for I haven't the least idea."
"Does he have pockets in his cheeks like mine?" asked Striped
Chipmunk eagerly.
"He has pockets in his cheeks, and that is why he is called Pocket
Gopher," replied Old Mother Nature; "but they are not at all like
yours, Striped Chipmunk. Yours are on the inside of your cheeks,
but his are on the outside."
"How funny!" exclaimed Striped Chipmunk.
"Your pockets are small compared with those of Grubby," continued
Old Mother Nature. "One of his covers almost the whole side of
his head back to his short neck, and it is lined with fur, and
remember he has two of them. Grubby uses these for carrying food
and never for carrying out earth when he is digging a tunnel, as
some folks think he does. He stuffs them full with his front feet
and empties them by pressing them from the back with his feet.
The Gopher family is quite large and the members range in size
from the size of Danny Meadow Mouse to that of Robber the Rat,
only these bigger members are stouter and heavier than Robber.
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