Chapter X: Part 10

Commonly known as the antelope, or white-tailed, chipmunk, this handsome little mammal is in reality a species of spermophile, or ground squirrel. The misnomer is due, no doubt, to its small size, striped back, and sprightly ways. From the true chipmunks it may be distinguished by its heavier proportions, and from both chipmunks and all other spermophiles by its odd, upturned tail, carried closely recurved along the top of the rump. This character renders the species unmistakable at a glance and gives it an amusing air of jaunty self-confidence.

The antelope chipmunk is characteristic of the arid plains and lower mountain slopes of the Southwest from western Colorado through Utah, northern Arizona, Nevada, the southern half of California, and all of Lower California, and down the Rio Grande Valley through New Mexico to western Texas.

Within this area it occupies a wide variety of situations. It inhabits the intensely hot desert plains near sea level in Lower California, where the temperature rises to more than 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade and the vegetation is characterized by such picturesque forms of plant life as cactuses of many species, yuccas, fouquerias, palo verdes, ironwood, and creosote bushes; it is found also above 7,000 feet altitude on the cool plateaus and mountain slopes of Arizona and Colorado, among sage brush, greasewood, junipers, and piñon pines. It appears equally at home skipping nimbly over rocky slopes or among slide rock in arid canyons and scurrying through the brushy growth on broad sandy plains devoid of rocks.

The antelope chipmunk has the most vivacious and pleasing personality of all the numerous ground squirrels within our borders. During the many months I have camped and traveled on horseback in their haunts I have never lost interest in them. They were forever skirmishing among the bushes or dashing away down trails or over the rocks of canyon slopes, their white tails curled impudently over their backs like flags of derision at my cumbersome advance.

Their burrows are dug in a variety of places. In the open flats they enter the ground almost vertically, and often several entrances are grouped within a few yards. In some places a little mound of loose dirt is heaped up at one side of the entrance and at others there is no trace of it. Frequently, when the ground is soft, little trails lead in different directions from the entrances, and often between holes 100 yards or more apart, as though they made many social visits. The deserted burrows of other mammals are sometimes utilized to save the trouble of digging. The burrows are often under the shelter of cactuses, bushes, and great boulders or may be among crevices in the rocks.

Antelope chipmunks are extraordinarily active and continually wander far from home in search of food or in a spirit of restless inquiry. As the traveler on horseback rides slowly along he will see them racing away in front of him, sometimes climbing to the top of a bush 100 or 200 yards in advance for a better look at the wayfarer and then scuttling down and racing on again. In this way I have seen them keep ahead of me sometimes for several hundred yards instead of hiding in some hole or shelter, as they might easily do. At other times they were so unsuspicious they would permit me to pass within a few yards with slight signs of alarm. They have a chirping call, often uttered when watching from the top of a bush, and also a prolonged twittering or trilling note, diminishing toward the end.

In the higher and colder parts of their range, where snow lies long on the ground, these spermophiles hibernate for several months, but in the warmer areas they are active throughout the year. Wherever they occur they gather food and carry it to their underground store-rooms in their cheek pouches. Like most ground squirrels, they eat many kinds of seeds and fruits as well as flesh and insects when occasion offers. About cultivated lands they are sometimes abundant and destructive, digging up corn or other grain as soon as it is planted and also taking toll of the ripening grain until they become a pest. In the desert they often gather about camps to pick up the grain scattered about when the horses are fed.

It is well for them that they are prolific, having one or more litters during spring and summer, with from four to twelve in each, as they have many enemies. Snakes and weasels pursue them into their burrows, while foxes, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, and many kinds of hawks, constantly reduce their numbers.

=THE GOLDEN CHIPMUNK= (=Callospermophilus lateralis chrysodeirus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 542_)

_Sciurus hudsonicus_]

_Sciurus douglasi_]

The golden chipmunk, or calico squirrel, as it is named in Oregon, is the most richly colored of the several geographic races of a widely known species, _Callospermophilus lateralis_, abundant among the open forests of yellow pines and firs of the western ranges, including the Rocky Mountains, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada. Although commonly known as a chipmunk, this handsome animal is a ground squirrel, or spermophile, distinguished from all its kind by heavy stripes, resembling those of a chipmunk, along the sides of its back. From the chipmunks it may be distinguished at a glance by its thick-set and often almost obese proportions, which render its movements much slower and less graceful than they are with those nimble sprites. It occurs from northeastern British Columbia to New Mexico, southern California, and even in an area in the high Sierra Madre of southern Chihuahua, where an isolated representative occupies a limited range.

_Sciurus carolinensis_]

_Sciurus niger rufiventer_

FOX SQUIRREL

_Sciurus niger_]

Their vertical distribution extends from a moderate elevation above the sea in Oregon to above 11,000 feet in southern California. They are common in the Yellowstone and other national parks, where their size, bright markings, and activities render them conspicuous.

Everywhere their habits resemble those of the various species of true chipmunks with which they associate. They live in burrows, which they dig under the shelter of logs, rocks, stumps, roots of trees, or even in open ground, as well as in the ready-made shelter of rock slides, with conies, at timberline. Their burrows at times have several entrances within a small area. Often they occupy the burrows of other animals, including pocket gophers. They excavate burrows under cabins or barns in clearings, and abandoned mining camps or old sawmill sites frequently abound with them. Nests and storage chambers are excavated off the passageways. The nests are usually made of leaves and other soft vegetable material, but in the sheep country wool, which they find in scattered tufts, is often used.

A camping party in their haunts is certain to attract them, and, as about barns, it is necessary to keep a watchful eye on them to prevent their robbing grain sacks or other supplies. When they once locate an accessible supply of grain their industry is remarkable. I have seen a dozen or more working throughout the day, making continuous hurried trips, with loaded cheek pouches, to their dens, sometimes two hundred yards away. On approach of autumn they become continually active, gathering their winter supplies.

The length of their hibernation varies with the severity of the climate, but is rarely under five months. It is said to run through seven months on the higher mountains of southern California. They usually go into winter quarters in September or early in October, but occasionally one may be seen out as late as December. At this time they have become so fat that their movements are very sluggish. One kept as a pet for eleven years at Klamath Falls, Oregon, is reported to have hibernated regularly each winter. In Montana they retire to their dens in September and come out in March. They mate soon after they appear in spring and the young, four to seven in number, are half grown the last of May.

Like true chipmunks, these spermophiles are fond of weedy clearings or other openings in the forest, where stumps, logs, rocks, and old fences offer plentiful shelter and many elevated vantage points where they may sit by the hour watching the doings of their small world. They have a sharp whistling or chirping call note, usually uttered as a warning cry, but sometimes as a social call. They do not like gloomy or stormy weather and generally lie hidden at such times, but on sunny days are so actively engaged in foraging, running along the tops of logs, or perching on the tops of stumps and large rocks that they add greatly to the pleasant animation of the forests where they live. When running they usually carry the tail elevated like a chipmunk.

They sun themselves for hours on elevated points, sometimes lying quiescent and again sitting bolt upright, but always watchful and ready to disappear at the slightest alarm. This watchfulness is necessary, for their enemies are abroad at all hours. They are the prey of bobcats, foxes, coyotes, weasels, snakes, and hawks.

The golden chipmunk and its related subspecies are omnivorous feeders. They show a strong predilection for bacon when looting camp stores and eat any kind of meat with avidity. Young birds and birds’ eggs are devoured whenever found, as are also grasshoppers, beetles, flies, larvæ, and many other insects. The number of kinds of seeds eaten is almost endless and includes chinquapin and pine nuts, rhus, alfileria, violet, lupine, ceanothus, and others. They also eat roses and other flowers, green leaves, wild currants, gooseberries and other fruit, and small tuberous roots. They often climb bushes and low trees, at least 30 feet from the ground, after nuts and berries. The capacity of their cheek pouches is shown by one instance, when one animal was loaded with 750 serviceberry seeds. The pouches of another contained 360 grains of barley, another 357 of oats. Bold and persistent camp robbers, their depredations cover all articles of food, including bread and cake, and they sometimes do considerable injury to small mountain grain fields.

I had the pleasure of living in the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona for several years where these attractive ground squirrels were numerous, and vividly remember them as among the most interesting of the woodland folk. Their friendliness about forest cabins is notable and with a little encouragement they become extremely confiding and amusing visitors.

The young are playful, pursuing one another in apparent games of “tag” over rocks, stumps, and logs. When partly grown they have all the heedlessness of youth and on one occasion an observer saw the mother repeatedly push the young back into crevices in a rock slide with her front feet, as they persisted in trying to come out to look at the strange intruder in their haunts.

=THE EASTERN CHIPMUNK= (=Tamias striatus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 542_)

The chipmunks are close relatives of the tree squirrels, but live mainly on the ground, are provided with cheek pouches for carrying food to their hidden stores, and have many ways similar to those of the spermophiles, or ground squirrels. They are nearly circumpolar in distribution, ranging through eastern Europe and northern Asia as well as from the Atlantic to the Pacific in North America. On this continent they are far more numerous in species and individuals than in the Old World, and their center of abundance appears to lie in the mountainous western half of the United States. Their extreme range extends from near the Arctic Circle in Canada to Durango and Middle Lower California, Mexico.

As a group the chipmunks are widely known for their grace, beauty of coloration, and sprightly ways. Among the handsomest and most familiar is the common chipmunk of Canada and the United States east of the Great Plains. Within this area it is divided into several geographic races, of which the best known is the brightly colored animal occupying all the wooded region from the Great Lakes to Nova Scotia and New England, which is the subject of the accompanying illustration. Its vertical distribution extends from sea level to the summit of Mount Washington, where it may be seen on pleasant summer days.

The eastern chipmunks, like most of their kind, belong to the forest and its immediate environment. Favorite haunts are rocky ledges covered with vines and brush, half-cleared land, the brushy borders of old pasture fences, stone walls, and similar situations. In early days they were so plentiful in places that they made serious inroads on the scanty crops of the settlers, and bounties were offered for their destruction.

No one who visits the woods of the eastern States or Canada can fail to observe with pleasure the alert, attractive ways of these little squirrel-like animals. They are everywhere, including the vicinity of summer camps in the forest, and, if encouraged, prove most attractive and friendly neighbors. To such small beasts the world is peopled with enemies against which the only safeguard is eternal watchfulness. This accounts for the hesitating advances and retreats so characteristic of these chipmunks, which at the first sudden movement of any suspicious object, or loud noise, disappear like a flash. They soon learn to recognize a friend and in many places come regularly into camp buildings to receive food. I doubt, however, if they ever become quite so friendly as some squirrels under similar conditions.

Like most of the squirrel tribe, they are endowed with much curiosity, and at the appearance of anything unusual, but not too alarming, they seek some safe vantage point from which to peer at it with every sign of interest. They are extremely timid and wary, however, and if doubtful move by little cautious runs, stopping to sit up and look about, often mounting a stump, log, or a side of a tree trunk for the purpose, the tail all the time moving with slow undulations. If alarmed they dash away to the nearest shelter, the tail held nearly or quite erect and sometimes quivering excitedly. When running to shelter they often utter chattering cries of alarm. Their principal enemies are cats, weasels, martens, foxes, snakes, birds of prey, and the untamed small boy with his dog. Weasels, the supreme terror of their existence, follow them to the depths of their burrows and kill them ruthlessly.

These chipmunks are sociable and playful, often pursuing one another, first one and then the other being the pursuer, as though in a game. They race along fence tops and old logs and up stumps and even the lower parts of tree trunks. Lovers of bright, sunny weather, they usually remain hidden in their burrows during stormy days. If they venture out at such times they are quiet and show none of the mercurial liveliness which characterizes them when the weather is pleasant.

Their food includes a great variety of cultivated and wild plants, as wheat, buckwheat, corn, grass seed, ragweed seed, hazelnuts, acorns, beechnuts, strawberries, blueberries, wintergreen berries, mushrooms, and many others. In addition they eat May beetles and other insects and insect larvæ, snails, occasional frogs, salamanders, small snakes, and many young birds and eggs.

At all seasons they fill their cheek pouches with food to be carried away to their dens, but toward the end of summer or early fall they work industriously laying up stores of seeds and nuts. Sometimes these stores, hidden in chambers excavated for the purpose or in hollow logs and similar places, contain several quarts of beechnuts or other nuts or seeds. Small quantities of such food are hidden here and there under the leaves or in shallow pits in the ground. Store-rooms in one burrow contained a peck of chestnuts, cherry pits, and dogwood berries, and another had a half bushel of hickory nuts.

_Sciurus aberti_

KAIBAB SQUIRREL

_Sciurus kaibabensis_]

While at a summer camp I once saw one of these chipmunks give an exhibition of the exquisitely keen power of scent which must be necessary to recover scattered stores. The chipmunk had been coming repeatedly down a wooded slope in full view for twenty-five yards or more to the floor of the porch for food supplied by the campers. While it was absent carrying food to its burrow I placed a few nut meats on the flat top of a stump about fifteen feet to one side of the porch and farther away than the point where the chipmunk was being fed bread crumbs. On its return several minutes later, instead of going as usual to the porch, it ran directly to the stump, climbed up it, and promptly made off with the nuts, which it had evidently located from afar. They sometimes climb beeches and other trees to gather nuts even to a height of fifty or sixty feet, and are commonly seen on low limbs and in bushes.

_Glaucomys volans_]

_Mustela nigripes_]

The entrances to the burrows are usually under logs, roots, or rocks, or the den may be in a hollow log, stump or base of a tree, or even under a cabin in the woods. The burrows in the ground are commonly a series of tunnels some yards in length, with an oval nest and storage chamber two or three feet underground, and with branches from the main passageway. The nest chamber, a foot or more in diameter, is filled with fragments of dry leaves and other soft vegetable material. One chamber is usually used for sanitary purposes. The used entrance hole is commonly without a sign of dug earth about it, the loose soil from the burrow and its chambers apparently having been thrown out at another opening, which appears to be used for this purpose only and is kept plugged with earth.

Throughout most of the northern half of its range these chipmunks usually hibernate from some time in October until March. Their hibernation is far less profound than that of the woodchuck and they not infrequently appear above ground during periods of mild weather, even in midwinter. The hibernating period is shorter in the southern part of the range.

They vary much in numbers from year to year and at times appear to increase suddenly in localities where food is plentiful, indicating a probable food migration. The young, numbering from four to six in a litter, are born at varying times between the last of April and late summer, indicating the possibility of more than one litter a season.

The most characteristic note of this chipmunk is a throaty _chuck, chuck_, which is ordinarily used as a call note, but which in spring is uttered many times in rapid succession to express the seasonal feeling of joy and well being, thus taking on the character of a song. Such joyful notes may be heard on every hand in places where the little songsters are numerous. In addition, they have a high-pitched, chirping note and a small churring whistle when much alarmed.

=THE OREGON CHIPMUNK= (=Eutamias townsendi= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 543_)

The resident species of birds and mammals in the humid coastal region of Oregon, Washington, and southern British Columbia are strikingly characterized by their darker and browner colors in comparison with closely related species in more arid districts.

The Oregon chipmunk is one of the common species showing marked response to these local climatic conditions and is the darkest of all the many species of chipmunks in the Western States. This chipmunk is one of several geographic races into which the species is divided by changing environment. The species, as a whole, ranges along the west coast from British Columbia to Lower California, and the races at the extremes of the line differ much in color.

As befits a habitant of the humid forested region, the Oregon chipmunk is robustly built and distinctly larger than the other chipmunks of the Western States. It is common and generally distributed throughout this region, occurring from among the drift logs along the ocean beach to above timberline on the Cascade Mountains. Within these limits it frequents almost every variety of situation. It occurs in the midst of gloomy forests of giant spruces, cedars, and firs, but is particularly fond of old fences and brush patches on the borders of farm clearings in the valleys as well as the vicinity of rocky ledges, brush piles, and fallen timber, where the low thickets offer a variety of food-bearing plants and ready shelter.

On the mountains it is most numerous about rock slides and “burns” or other openings in the forest. Several pairs usually haunt the vicinity of old sawmills and of mountain cabins. Like others of their kind, they are alert and vivacious, varying in mood from day to day, but always interesting. At times they are excessively shy and retiring, and a person might spend a day in their haunts without seeing or hearing one, although it is safe to say that the intruder had been seen and every foot of his progress noted by the chipmunks. On another day, perhaps because the sun shines more brightly and nature is in a happier mood, the animals appear on all sides. Their slowly repeated sociable _chuck, chuck_, is heard from the depths of the brushy covert as well as from the tops of stumps, logs, rocks, or other lookout points where they sit to view their surroundings. If alarmed they utter a sharp, birdlike chirping note as they vanish in the nearest shelter. As one moves about in their haunts he may now and then see one appear for a moment above the undergrowth in a tall bush, on top of a stump, and sometimes even mounting a few yards up a tree trunk to observe the cause of the disturbance, only to vanish quickly.

They are always skirmishing for food, and carrying it in their cheek pouches to hidden stores. On the approach of winter this activity becomes very marked. A surprising variety of fruits and seeds are eaten and stored, among them the salmonberry, red elderberry, black-capped raspberry, thimble berry, blackberry, blueberry, gooseberry, thistle seed, dogwood seed, hazelnuts, acorns, and others. They have favorite feeding places, such as the top of a stone or stump or the shelter of a log where they carry nuts or other seeds. These places are always marked by little piles of empty shells or chaff from seeds. About ranches they raid grain fields and other crops, sometimes in numbers sufficient to do considerable damage.

In sheltered spots they make underground burrows with nest chamber and store-rooms excavated along the passages. They usually retire to these dens to hibernate during the last of September or first of October, and appear again about March or April, often long before the snow disappears. During fall and early winter they are sometimes seen running about over newly fallen snow. One which was dug from its winter quarters in British Columbia the last of November would move about slowly and sleepily if teased, but when left undisturbed would curl up and go to sleep again. This indicates the difference between the light and often broken hibernation of chipmunks and the deep lethargy which possesses ground squirrels in the North at this time. Toward the southern end of their ranges neither chipmunk nor ground squirrel hibernates. They mate soon after they awake from their winter sleep, and the young, two to five or six in number, are born from April to June. Whether more than one litter is born during a season, is, like many other details concerning the lives of these attractive animals, still to be learned.

=THE PAINTED CHIPMUNK= (=Eutamias minimus pictus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 543_)

The preceding sketch tells how the Oregon chipmunk, living under a cool, humid climate, in a region of great forests, has responded to its environment by developing dark colors and a robust physique. The painted chipmunk of the Great Basin has given an equally perfect response to entirely different conditions. It is one of the geographic races of a species peculiar to the sagebrush-covered plains and hills from the Dakotas across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin region to the east slope of the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada. Its home is on treeless plains, in a climate characterized by brilliant sunshine and clear, dry air. In this environment the painted chipmunk has developed a smaller and slenderer body than the Oregon species, and strikingly paler colors.

These differences in physique are accompanied by equal differences in mental and physical expression. These little animals are exceedingly alert and agile, darting through dense growths of bushes with all the easy grace of weasels. When running they hold the tail stiffly erect. When alarmed they utter a shrill chippering cry, especially when darting into shelter. They also have a chucking call, uttered at intervals, which may be used merely as a note of sociability or to put their neighbors on the alert.

Although one of the most distinctive animals of the sagebrush plains, this chipmunk also ranges into the borders of open forests on the mountain sides. It is most numerous on flats and foothill slopes among heavy growths of sage and rabbit brush. When its territory is invaded by settlers it does not hesitate to gather about the borders of fields and even to raid barns in search of grain and other food. Its burrows are dug under large sagebrush and other bushes and under rocks and similar shelter.

As with others of their kind, painted chipmunks habitually gather seeds of many plants and carry them in their cheek pouches to their underground dens. In addition to seeds and green vegetation, they eat any fruits growing in their haunts, and also many insects, especially grasshoppers and larvae. In one locality in Nevada during June and July more than half their food consisted of a web worm and its chrysalids with which the sage bushes swarmed. The chipmunks climbed into the bushes and pulled the larvæ from the webs. As half the bushes were infested, the work of the many chipmunks had a material effect in reducing the numbers of this pest. The vegetable food eaten includes the seeds of _Ribes_, _Kuntzia_, _Sarcobatus_, pigweed, and many other weeds, serviceberry, various grasses, oats, wheat, and the seeds of small cactuses. They regularly climb into the tops of large sage and other bushes for their seeds and the ground beneath is often covered with the small sections of twigs cut by them. They climb readily and often travel from bush to bush through tall thickets like squirrels in tree-tops. On warm mornings after frosty nights they may be seen in the tops of the bushes basking in the sun.

Throughout most of their range they begin hibernation in September or October, and reappear early in spring. The young appear a month or more later, and litters containing from two to six may be born throughout the summer, indicating the possibility that several litters may be born to the same pair in a season.

So alert and shy are they that even a person in their haunts day after day will see but few of them. Their hearing is extremely acute, and even at a great distance the footsteps of an intruder sets them all on the alert. On every side they run swiftly to cover before the observer has opportunity to see them. In such places a large setting of baited traps will reveal their presence in surprising numbers. In one locality, during a brief visit, traps set among the brush for other small mammals yielded more than forty chipmunks.

On stormy and cloudy days, especially if the weather is cool, painted chipmunks remain in their dens, but on mild sunny days they frisk about with amazingly quick darting movements. A horseman riding along a road leading through a sagebrush flat will frequently see them racing across the road often several hundred yards away, the sound of the horse’s footfalls having alarmed the chipmunks over a wide area. Here and there one may be seen climbing hastily to the top of a tall bush to take a look at the cause of alarm before finally seeking concealment. When pursued among the bushes they often run considerable distances before taking refuge in a burrow. When hard pressed they will enter the first opening encountered, but if it is not its own home the fugitive soon comes out and scampers away, apparently fearful of the return of the owner or perhaps owing to his presence.

Winter Summer

LEAST WEASEL

_Mustela rixosa_]

_Mustela arcticus_] Apparently, as in the case of many other desert mammals, the painted chipmunk, with its related races, is able to subsist without drinking, since it is often seen far out on arid plains many miles from the nearest water.

_Martes americana_]

_Mustela vison_]

As with all its kind, the world of the painted chipmunk is filled with imminent peril of sudden death. Overhead, gliding on silent pinions, are hawks of several species, while on the ground snakes, weasels, badgers, bobcats, foxes, and coyotes are ever searching for them as prey.

=THE RED SQUIRREL= (=Sciurus hudsonicus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 546_)

Every one who has visited the forests of Canada and northeastern United States knows the vivacious, rollicking, and frequently impudent red squirrel. This entertaining little beast, known also as the pine squirrel and chickaree, has little of that woodland shyness so characteristic of most forest animals. It often searches out the human visitor to its haunts and from a low branch or tree trunk sputters, barks, and scolds the intruder, working itself into a frenzy of excitement. This habit, combined with the rusty red color and small size of the animal, about half that of the gray squirrel, renders its identity unmistakable. It has distinct winter and summer coats, but in both the rusty red prevails. The winter dress is distinguished, however, by small tufts on the ears.

The red squirrel, with its related small species, occupying most of the wooded parts of North America north of Mexico, forms a strongly characterized group, with no near kin among the squirrels of the Old World. In its geographic races it ranges through the forests of all Alaska and Canada and south to Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, northern Indiana, all the Northeastern States to the District of Columbia, and along the Alleghenies to South Carolina. Owing to its small size, this animal, like the chipmunk, is considered too small for game, although occasionally hunted for sport. As a consequence its increase or decrease is usually governed by the available food supply, although man interferes locally when it becomes too destructive.

This squirrel shows a strong preference for coniferous forests, whether of hemlock, spruce, fir, or pine, but may be common in woods where conifers are few and widely scattered. Although usually diurnal and busily occupied from sunrise until sunset, it sometimes continues its activities during moonlight nights, especially when nuts are ripe and it is time to gather winter stores. During warm, pleasant days in spring and fall, when the nights are cool, it often lies at full length along the tops of large branches during the middle of the day, basking in the grateful warmth of the sun.

The nests, which are located in a variety of situations, are made of twigs, leaves, or moss, and lined with fibrous bark and other soft material. Some are in knot-holes or other hollows in trees, others may be built outside on limbs near the trunk, and still others are in burrows made in the ground under roots, stumps, logs, brush heaps, or other cover offering secure refuge. Apparently several litters, of young, containing from four to six, are born each season, as they have been found from April to September.

They do not hibernate, but are active throughout the year, except during some of the coldest and most inclement weather. To provide against the season of scarcity, they accumulate at the base of a tree, under the shelter of a log, or other cover, great stores of pine, spruce, or other cones, sometimes in heaps containing from six to ten bushels. They also hide scattered cones here and there and place stores of beechnuts, corn, and other seeds in hollows or underground store-rooms. They are fond of edible mushrooms and sometimes lay up half a bushel of them among the branches of trees or bushes to dry for winter use. In the western mountains their great stores of pine cones are often robbed by seed-gatherers for forestry nurseries. In winter they tunnel through the snow to their hidden stores and sometimes continue the tunnels from one store to another.

Each squirrel makes its home for a long period in or about a certain tree. There he carries his cones to extract the seeds, and on the ground beneath it the accumulation of fallen scales and centers of cones sometimes amounts to fifteen or twenty bushels. In addition to the seeds of the various conifers, red squirrels eat many kinds of fruits and seeds; they also raid cornfields and orchards and even make nests in barns and woodsheds to be near the food supply which some farmer’s industry has collected.

Red squirrels have the interesting habit of voluntarily swimming streams and lakes, including such bodies of water as Lake George and even the broadest parts of Lake Champlain. When they thus cross the water and make their migrations, there is little doubt that they are usually in search of a better feeding ground.

The red squirrels and related species have the greatest variety of notes possessed by any of the American members of the squirrel family. In addition to the barking, scolding, chattering notes already mentioned, they have a real song, which is one of the most attractive of woodland notes. It is a long-drawn series of musical rolling or churring notes, varied at times by cadences and having a ventriloquial quality rendering it difficult to locate. These notes never fail to awaken pleasurable emotions and to recall to me my early boyhood in the Adirondacks, where the spring songs of the chickarees were among the first calls which awakened me to the marvelous beauties of nature.

The worst trait of the red squirrel and one which largely overbalances all his many attractive qualities is his thoroughly proved habit of eating the eggs and young of small birds. During the breeding season he spends a large part of his time in predatory nest hunting, and the number of useful and beautiful birds he thus destroys must be almost incalculable. The number of red squirrels is very great over a continental area, and one close observer believes each squirrel destroys 200 birds a season. Practically all species of northern warblers, vireos, thrushes, chickadees, nuthatches, and others are numbered among their victims. The notable scarcity of birds in northern forests may be largely due to these handsome but vicious marauders.

In the fur country these squirrels are much disliked by the trappers for their constant interference with meat-baited traps. Many fall victims to their carnivorous desires, but their places are soon taken by others.

The energy and unfailing variety in the performances of red squirrels always keep the attention of their human neighbors. Among other interesting activities, their pursuit of one another up and down and around the trunks of trees, over the ground, along logs, back and forth in the most reckless abandon, is most entertaining to watch. These pursuits among the young are playful and harmless, but among the males in spring are of the most deadly character. I have seen the victim go up and down tree after tree, shrieking in fear and agony and leaving a trail of blood on the snow as he tried to escape his truculent pursuer.

Such scenes as this, combined with our knowledge of its bird-killing habits, appear belied by the exquisite grace and beauty of this squirrel as it sits on a branch and sends its musical cadences trilling through the primeval forest. So confirmed are red squirrels in the destruction of bird life, however, they should not be permitted to become very numerous anywhere and it may eventually become necessary to outlaw them wherever found.

=THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL= (=Sciurus douglasi= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 546_)

In all details of size, form, notes, and habits the Douglas squirrel gives testimony to its descent from the same ancestral stock as the common red squirrel (_Sciurus hudsonicus_). The typical Douglas squirrel, represented in the accompanying illustration, is one of several geographic races of a species which ranges from the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the Pacific, and from British Columbia south to the San Pedro Martir Mountains of Lower California. The home of the Douglas squirrel is amid the wonderful coniferous forests of western Oregon, Washington, and southern British Columbia. As in other mammals of this extremely humid region, the colors of its upperparts are dark brown, in strong contrast to the much paler and grayer colors of the closely related subspecies living in the clearer and more arid climate of the Sierra Nevada in California. These squirrels are known locally by a variety of common names, including pine squirrel, redwood squirrel, and “drummer.”

Although usually not quite so noisy and self-assertive as the irrepressible little red blusterer of eastern forests, the Douglas squirrel is also notable for its rollicking, chattering character and sometimes cannot be outdone in its amusing displays of aggressive impudence. When the animals are numerous the air at times resounds with their call notes or songs, one answering the other, now near and now far, until the somber depths of the mighty forest seems peopled with a multitude of these joyous furry sprites. Their song, resembling that of the red squirrel, is a rapid trilling or bubbling series of notes, long drawn out and sometimes varied by cadences. It is so musical that it seems more like the song of some strange bird than of a mammal. When these squirrels are not common they are much less given to song and seem subdued and shy, as though impressed by the vast loneliness of their deep forest haunts.

At mating time, early in spring, they are especially noisy, and again in summer when the first litter of young are out trying their youthful pipes in expression of their cheerful well being. They frequently come down on a low branch or on the trunk of a tree and chatter, bark, and scold at man, dog, or other intruder, now rushing up and down, or making little dashes around the tree trunk, their necks outstretched and tails flirting with a great show of anger and contempt highly entertaining to see. They are restlessly active at all seasons of the year and habitually chase one another through the forest with an appearance of rollicking fun which may many times be in more deadly earnest than appears to the casual observer.

In winter their tracks in the snow lead from tree to tree, along the tops of logs and fences, and in all directions to hidden stores of food, which they appear to be able to locate with unerring certainty under the snow. An adventurous spirit leads them to race away from the forest, along fence-tops, to pay visits to ranch buildings and even to villages and small towns. Like their eastern relative, the Douglas squirrels are omnivorous, feeding on the seeds of all the conifers in their range, including spruces, firs, pines, and redwoods, and also upon acorns, and a great variety of other seeds, fruits, and mushrooms, insects, birds’ eggs, young birds, and any other meat they can find. Owing to their habit of interfering with meat-baited traps, they are a nuisance to trappers. They frequently visit orchards and carry off apples and pears, from which they extract the seeds. They have been seen also to visit the wounds made on a willow trunk by sapsuckers to drink the flowing sap. Their feet and the fur about their mouths are often much gummed with pitch from working on pine cones.

_Spilogale putorius_]

_Mephitis mephitis_]

In many places the soft, moist earth in the woods is riddled with little pits dug by these squirrels apparently when they are after larvæ or perhaps edible roots. Throughout the summer, but especially during the last half of the season, and in autumn Douglas squirrels work with persistent energy to amass great stores of seed-bearing cones, which they heap, sometimes bushels of them, about the bases of trees, stumps, and the upturned roots of fallen trees or under other shelter. Cones are also buried here and there in the loose leaves and humus. In winter many holes in the snow with piles of cone scales at the entrances show where the owners have dug down to their stores.

_Conepatus mesoleucus_]

_Dasypus novemcincta_]

Some of their nests are constructed in hollow trees, many others on branches near their junction with the trunks, and still others in underground dens under roots, logs, or stumps. In winter when alarmed these squirrels sometimes race down the tree trunks and take refuge in holes leading through the snow to their food caches and underground burrows. The nests built in tree-tops are usually rather bulky, measuring a foot or more in diameter, and are made of small twigs, dry leaves, moss, grass, and fibrous bark. They are commonly lined with such soft material as feathers and fur. The young, numbering three to seven at a litter, are born at any time between April and October.

The extraordinary intelligence and sense of prevision possessed by squirrels of this group is well illustrated by certain local food migrations. These have been observed in eastern Oregon in years when the cone crop has failed and nothing was available to lay up for winter. Under such conditions to remain in the mountain forests would mean death by starvation before winter had fairly begun. In 1910 and 1913 failure of the cone crop occurred in eastern Oregon and these squirrels promptly left the mountain forests in September and descended along creek courses to the open sagebrush plains as much as seven or more miles from the border of their ordinary haunts. In this open country they wintered successfully, raiding the farmers’ grain bins, root cellars, and other stores, and otherwise showing their supreme fitness to survive in the struggle for existence. With the coming again of summer they promptly returned to their abandoned homes in the pines. It appears to be one of the marvels of animal intelligence that under such circumstances as those named above the entire body of the squirrels on the mountains should have known what to do, especially as a great percentage of their number could never have had any previous experience as a guide.

=THE GRAY SQUIRREL= (=Sciurus carolinensis= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 547_)

The gray squirrel is so well known to everyone in the Eastern States that it scarcely needs an introduction. Many who have not seen it in its native haunts are familiar with it as a graceful and charming resident of parks in many cities. It is about twice as large as the red squirrel and intermediate in size between that species and the fox squirrel. Although sharing some of the range of both the species named, the color of the gray squirrel at once distinguishes it.

The gray squirrel is a North American species with no near relative in the Old World; on the Pacific coast, in the mountains of the Southwest, and in Mexico are other squirrels having much the same gray-colored body, but with no close relationship to it. Its range covers the deciduous forests of the Eastern States and southern Canada from Nova Scotia to Florida, and westward to the border of the treeless Great Plains. Wherever they occur these squirrels are an attractive element in the woodland life, their barking and chattering, their graceful forms, and their activity adding greatly to the cheerful animation of the forest. They are far less vociferous than red squirrels, but their notes are varied and serve to express a variety of meanings.

During the early settlement of the country west of the States bordering the coast, gray squirrels existed in great numbers and often made ruinous inroads on the pioneer corn and wheat fields. In 1749 they invaded Pennsylvania in such hosts that a bounty of three pence each was put on their scalps. Eight thousand pounds sterling was paid on this account, which involved the killing of 640,000 squirrels. In 1808 a law in force in Ohio required that each free white male deliver 100 squirrel scalps a year or pay $3 in cash. Records of the ravages of these squirrels in corn fields are extant also from Kentucky, Missouri, and other States.

Enormous migrations of gray squirrels from one part of the country to another occurred in those days, caused apparently by the failure of food supplies in the deserted areas. Some impulse to move in one general direction at the same time appeared to affect the squirrels and they swarmed across country in amazing numbers, carrying devastation to any farms crossed on the way. When engaged in such movements they appeared indifferent to obstacles and without hesitation swam lakes and streams even as large as the Hudson and the Ohio. Amusing legends grew up concerning these migrations, one of which avers that when the squirrels arrived on a river bank each dragged a large chip or piece of bark into the water and mounting it raised its bushy tail in the breeze and was wafted safely to the other shore! As a fact, many were drowned in crossing large streams and others arrived exhausted from their exertions.

The gray and fox squirrels were favorite targets for pioneer marksmen. The early chronicles tell of the ability of Daniel Boone and other riflemen to “bark” a squirrel, which meant so to cut the bark of the branch on which the squirrel sat as to bring it to the ground stunned without hitting the animal. With the clearing away of the forests, the general occupation of the country, and the decrease of larger animals, gray squirrels have been deprived of most of their haunts and have become such desirable game that they have decreased to a point requiring stringent legal protection to save them from extermination.

Gray squirrels are more thoroughly arboreal than red squirrels and make their nests either in hollow trunks or build them in the tops of trees. These outside nests are common and much like a crow’s nest in appearance except that they are generally more bulky and show more dead leaves. They are built on a foundation of small sticks with a rounded top of leaves, and are lined with shreds of bark, moss, and similar soft material. In the extreme northern part of their range they live mainly in hollow trees, but farther south many winter in outside nests. During severe cold and in stormy weather they remain hidden, sometimes for days at a time.

They have two litters of four to six young a year, the first usually being born in March or April. The old squirrel is a devoted mother and if the nest is disturbed she will at once carry the young to some safer retreat.

In many parts of their range black, or melanistic, individuals are born in litters otherwise of the ordinary gray color. In some districts the number of the black squirrels equals or exceeds the gray ones.

Gray squirrels range through such a variety of climatic conditions that their food varies greatly. They eat practically all available nuts, including acorns, chestnuts, beechnuts, hickory-nuts, and pecans, besides numberless seeds, many small fruits, and mushrooms. They raid fields for corn and wheat, and steal apples, pears, and quinces from orchards to eat the seeds. Like most other small rodents, they are fond of larvæ and insects and also destroy many birds’ eggs and young birds. They are far less serious offenders, however, in destroying birds than the red squirrel.

On the approach of winter they lay up stores of seeds and nuts in holes in trees and in little hiding places on the ground. Many nuts are hidden away singly. In the public parks of Washington, where many gray squirrels exist, I have repeatedly seen them dig a little pit two or three inches deep, then push a nut well down it cover it with earth, which they press firmly in place with the front feet, and then pull loose grass over the spot. One squirrel will have many such hidden nuts, and with nothing to mark the location it appears impossible that they could be recovered. That the squirrels knew what they were doing I have had repeated evidence in winter, even with several inches of snow on the ground, when they have been seen sniffing along the top of the snow, suddenly stop, dig down and unearth a nut with a precision that demonstrates the marvelous delicacy of their sense of smell. Although mainly diurnal, they are sometimes abroad on moonlight nights, especially when gathering stores of food for winter.

Wherever they are, these squirrels are extremely graceful, moving along the ground by curving bounds, the long fluffy tail undulating as they go, or running through the tree-tops, leaping from branch to branch with an ease and certainty beautiful to see. When pressed they make amazing leaps from tree to tree or even from a high tree-top to the ground without injury. They are extremely cunning at concealing themselves by lying flat on top of branches or by gliding around tree trunks, keeping them interposed between themselves and the pursuer.

Gray squirrels are so responsive to protection that they may continue to grace our remaining forests if we properly guard them. In addition to their beauty, they are interesting game animals which should continue to afford a moderate amount of sport--sufficient to prevent them from becoming overabundant and destructive. Now introduced in many city parks throughout the United States and in parts of England, including London, their ready acceptance of people as friends renders them charming animals in such places; but natural food is so scarce under these artificial conditions that care must be taken to feed them at all seasons, especially in winter.

=THE FOX SQUIRREL= (=Sciurus niger= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 547_)

THE RUSTY FOX SQUIRREL (Sciurus niger rufiventer)

(_For illustration, see page 547_)

Three species of tree squirrels inhabit the varied forests of eastern North America, each having its marked individuality expressed in color, size, and habits. All occupy a wide territory with varying climatic conditions, to which each species has responded by becoming modified into a series of geographic races, or subspecies. The red and the gray squirrels have already been described and it remains to give an account of the largest and in some respects the most remarkable of the three, the fox squirrel.

No other species of North American mammal can show such an extraordinary contrast in color among its subspecies as that between the rusty yellowish animal of the Ohio and upper Mississippi Valleys, and the handsome blackish one of the Southeastern States, both of which are pictured in the accompanying illustration.

The distribution of the fox squirrel is limited to the forested parts of the Eastern States. There it ranges from the Atlantic coast to the border of the Great Plains, and from southern New York and the upper Mississippi Valley southward to Florida, the Gulf coast, and across the lower Rio Grande into extreme northeastern Mexico.

Variations in the character of the haunts of the different subspecies of this squirrel almost equal their differences in color. In the upper Mississippi and Ohio Valleys the rusty-colored race frequents the upland woods, where the nut-bearing hickory trees characterize the forests. In the South the dark-colored squirrels have more varied homes, either amid the live oaks draped in long Spanish moss, in the mysterious cypress forests of the swamps, or out in the uplands among the southern pines.

_Bassariscus astutus_]

_Scapanus townsendi_]

_Condylura cristata_]

In early days fox squirrels were plentiful, but never equaled the numbers of the gray squirrel. They appear always to have been more closely attached to their own district, for we have no records of the great migrations so notable in the other species.

Fox squirrels are not only distinguished from gray squirrels by their color, but are also nearly twice their size, commonly attaining a weight of two and sometimes nearly three pounds. They are the strongest and most heavily proportioned of all American squirrels. A deliberation of movement going with heaviness of body is in marked contrast to the graceful agility of most other tree squirrels. On the ground they walk with a curiously awkward, waddling gait, and even when hard pressed climb trees with none of the dashing quickness shown by other species. They often move about on the ground by a series of bounds, and at such times, with broad, feathery tails undulating in the air, present a most graceful and attractive sight.

Fox and gray squirrels occupy the same districts throughout most of their ranges, but often become so segregated locally that the grays may be found almost exclusively along bottom-lands and the fox squirrels on the higher ridges, but there is no hard and fast separation of haunts and the two forms usually share the same woodlands.