NINE-BANDED ARMADILLO
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.