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
LARGE WEASEL, or STOAT (Winter and Summer)