GOLDEN CHIPMUNKCallospermophilus lateralis chrysodeirus
GOLDEN CHIPMUNK
Callospermophilus lateralis chrysodeirus
EASTERN CHIPMUNKTamias striatus
EASTERN CHIPMUNK
Tamias striatus
Spermophiles are nearly circumpolar in distribution, ranging through northern lands from central Europe across Bering Strait to the Great Lakes in North America. Many species exist in North America, varying greatly in form, size, and color. They occur mainly inthe western part of the continent from the Arctic coast of Alaska to the southern end of the Mexican table-land. Some species are represented by enormous numbers and do great injury to cultivated crops. Among the larger and best known of the injurious species, the California ground squirrel, with its several geographic races, occupies most of the Pacific coast region from Oregon to Lower California. It has a broad vertical distribution, extending from the seashore to about 10,000 feet altitude on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California, and thrives under contrasting climatic conditions, as the humid northwest coast region and the most arid deserts of Lower California.
OREGON CHIPMUNKEutamias townsendi
OREGON CHIPMUNK
Eutamias townsendi
PAINTED CHIPMUNKEutamias minimus pictus
PAINTED CHIPMUNK
Eutamias minimus pictus
In California, where they are generally distributed and extremely numerous over great areas, these ground squirrels are most at home among the wild oats and scattered live oaks on the open slopes of the rocky foothills and thence up through the dense chaparral, scrub oaks, piñon pines, and junipers. Above this they populate many beautiful little valleys in colonies, as well as parts of the splendid open forests of pine and fir. Below they spread out from the foothills among the ranches in the great valleys. Wherever they occur they take heavy toll from the native forage plants, and in cultivated areas their devastations of crops place these spermophiles among the most serious of mammal pests.
They are omnivorous, eating insects and flesh on occasion, but feeding mainly on seeds, fruits, and many kinds of plants. The native vegetation in their haunts contains a wonderful variety of food plants, from humble weeds in the valleys to the lordly pines of the Sierra, but most attractive to these rodents are the rich food-bearers brought by the cultivators of the soil. The squirrels gather in great numbers about farms, and in feeding upon alfalfa, wheat, and other grains, grapes, peaches, apricots, almonds, prunes, pomegranates, and a variety of other crops, cause an annual loss to the farmers of California probably exceeding $20,000,000. So serious are their depredations that great sums have been spent in attempts to destroy them with poison. The Kern County Land Company, with vast holdings in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, in 1911 spent more than $40,000 for this purpose. This company estimated that the ground squirrels destroyed 20 per cent of the grain crop in great areas, and that twenty of them would destroy enough forage to support a cow through the year.
Ground squirrels by choice locate their burrows among slide rock, in crevices among cliffs, under boulders and roots of trees, in ditch or dry creek banks, or under stone walls, fences, or building, but in the parks of the high Sierra, as in the foothills and lowland valleys, they dig holes out in the open with conspicuous mounds at the entrances much like those of prairie-dogs.
Well-worn trails lead from one of their burrows to another and away to a distance through the wild oats in the foothills, or in the grain and forage crops of the valleys, and along these the animals travel when foraging or paying social visits. Whenever a large rock, stump, or other prominent object is convenient, they spend hours on the top sunning themselves and keeping a sharp lookout over their surroundings. From these lookout points when they suspect danger they utter a short, shrill, whistling note which may be heard at a long distance and which sends all their neighbors scurrying for shelter. They also have a lower chattering note, uttered about the burrow when resenting an intrusion or when otherwise displeased.
Ground squirrels are agile climbers on cliffs and among rocks as well as in fruit trees, live oaks, and other low trees, but I have never seen them far from the ground in large trees. When on the ground they run in a series of bounds like tree squirrels. The long, bushy tail is carried almost straight out behind when they scamper off in alarm, but at other times is curved and undulating, much as in the tree squirrels. They gather and manipulate food with their front paws, sitting upright on their haunches to eat or look about. On one occasion when I came to a foot-bridge over a broad irrigating ditch across which a number of ground squirrels were raiding an orchard, they did not hesitate to dash at full speed into the swiftly running water and swam quickly across to seek refuge in their holes on the far side.
Like other spermophiles, the California ground squirrels hibernate for months in the cold, snow-covered parts of their winter range, but remain active throughout the year in the warmer areas, where no snow falls. Throughout their range they gather stores of seeds, grain, and acorns and other nuts, carrying them in their cheek pouches to underground store-rooms for use in bad weather. In the valleys of California they lie hidden in their burrows for days at a time during cold winter rains, but are out as soon as the sun reappears. One or more litters, each containing from six to twelve young, are born from March to late in summer, according to the locality. The young leave the nest and care for themselves when about half grown.
The swarming abundance of the California ground squirrel on foothill slopes and in fertile valley bottoms equals the congregations of prairie-dogs in their most populous districts. This abundance of small animal life supports a great variety of predatory species, as coyotes, foxes, bobcats, several kinds of hawks, and the golden eagle. Owing to its predilection for ground squirrels, the golden eagle is protected by law in California, where many of them build their nests in low live oaks only a few yards from the ground.
When house rats brought the bubonic plague to San Francisco a few years ago they also carried it across the bay and passed it on to the ground squirrels living in the foothills back of Oakland. Thence the disease spread amongthese animals through parts of several surrounding counties. The United States Public Health Service and the local authorities in a vigorous campaign stopped the spread of this malady, but not until the potential ability of these rodents as plague-carriers had been well established. This fact and the wide distribution of the California and other ground squirrels over a large part of the continent should not be overlooked in connection with possible future outbreaks of the plague. Fortunately, investigation and field experiments on a large scale have shown that these spermophiles may be destroyed by poison over great areas at a relatively small cost.
(For illustration,see page 539)
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.
(For illustration,see page 542)
RED SQUIRRELSciurus hudsonicus
RED SQUIRREL
Sciurus hudsonicus
DOUGLAS SQUIRRELSciurus douglasi
DOUGLAS SQUIRREL
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, includingthe 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.
GRAY SQUIRREL (and black phase)Sciurus carolinensis
GRAY SQUIRREL (and black phase)
Sciurus carolinensis
RUSTY FOX SQUIRRELSciurus niger rufiventerFOX SQUIRRELSciurus niger
RUSTY FOX SQUIRRELSciurus niger rufiventerFOX SQUIRRELSciurus 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.
(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.
ABERT SQUIRRELSciurus abertiKAIBAB SQUIRRELSciurus kaibabensis
ABERT SQUIRRELSciurus abertiKAIBAB SQUIRRELSciurus 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 sixtyfeet, and are commonly seen on low limbs and in bushes.
FLYING SQUIRRELGlaucomys volans
FLYING SQUIRREL
Glaucomys volans
BLACK-FOOTED FERRETMustela nigripes
BLACK-FOOTED FERRET
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 throatychuck, 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.
(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 sociablechuck, 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 earlywinter 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.
(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 ofRibes,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.
WinterSummerLEAST WEASELMustela rixosa
WinterSummer
LEAST WEASEL
Mustela rixosa
LARGE WEASEL, or STOAT (Winter and Summer)Mustela arcticus
LARGE WEASEL, or STOAT (Winter and Summer)
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.
MARTEN, or AMERICAN SABLEMartes americana
MARTEN, or AMERICAN SABLE
Martes americana
AMERICAN MINKMustela vison
AMERICAN MINK
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.
(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 hethus 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.
(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.