standing.

Vorhies has repeatedly noted when watching for the appearance of a
kangaroo rat at night that this sound invariably precedes the rodent's
first emergence into the open, and often its appearance after an alarm,
though when the storage season has begun and the kangaroo rat is
carrying loads of grass heads or other material into its den, it
regularly comes out without preliminary signaling. Vorhies has also
observed it making the sound while on top of the mound, and certainly
not digging, but was unable to see how it was made.


VOICE.

No data concerning any call notes or sounds other than those described
above are at hand, with the following exception: Price (in Allen, 1895,
213), who studied the habits of the animal in the moonlight, at Willcox,
Ariz., says that a low chuckle was uttered at intervals; and Vorhies has
had one captive female that would repeatedly utter a similar chuckle in
a peevish manner when disturbed by day, and one captive male which, when
teased into a state of anger and excitement, would squeal much like a
cornered house rat. Vorhies has spent many moonlight hours observing
kangaroo rats, but without ever hearing a vocal sound uttered by free
individuals.


DAILY AND SEASONAL ACTIVITY.

The kangaroo rat is strictly nocturnal. An observer watching patiently
by a den in the evening for the animal's first appearance is not