Part 22

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.

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.

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.

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.