gopher (1)

[Fr. gaufre =(1) a honey-comb, (2) a wafer, a kind of cake.] Zool .: A name given by the early French settlers in this country to various animals which honey comb the ground by burrowing in it. In Canada and in the state of Illinois it was given to a gray bur rowing squirrel, Spermophilus Franklin i , west of the Mi i ippi to S. Richardson i i , in Wisconsin to a striped squirrel, and in Mi ouri to a burrowing pouched rat, Geomys bursar i us . All these are mammals; but in Georgia the term was applied to a snake, Coluber coupen , and in Florida to a turtle, Testudo polyp hem us. ( Good rich & Porter .) gopher-hole, s. I. Ord. Lang.: The burrow of a gopher. [GOPHER (1).] II. Fort .: A small bomb-proof in a line of riflepits. "Against [mortar shells) rifle-pits are no protection, and the soldiers burrow into the earth places known as gopher holes."-Harper's Weekly, Aug. 6, 1864, p. 502.