On Blue Ridge these mice were recorded between 7100 and 8000 feet
elevation. Here they were restricted to dense tracts of snowbrush and
sagebrush, often where these tracts were interspersed with, or beneath,
open groves of conifers. These mice seemed to favor areas where this
thick brush was broken by patches of open, grass-covered ground. Benson
(1930:450) records this subspecies from Swarthout Valley, near Big
Pines, at 6860 feet elevation.
While setting traps for pocket gophers one mile southwest of Big Pines,
in September of 1951, I frightened a pocket mouse from its burrow. The
animal jumped into the tangle of interlacing twigs of a nearby clump of
snowbrush, and with great dexterity climbed into the center of the bush,
where it was lost to view. I was surprised at the facility with which
this saltatorial rodent traveled through the network of small branches.
In winter, in areas inhabited by this mouse, snow covers the ground for
long periods during which these mice are probably forced to remain below
ground.
_Specimens examined._--Los Angeles County: 1 mi. S and 2 mi. W
Big Pines, 7400 ft., 2.
=Dipodomys panamintinus mohavensis= (Grinnell)