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.