Chipmunk 



the sunshine of every warm day we have, to retire and become 

 dormant again, like the dormouse, at the approach of a cold 

 wave or snow weather. 



Those lirst few weeks of confinement in November must be 

 a strange experience for such an active sun-loving creature as the 

 chipmunk. To go down out of the bright October sunlight into 

 a chamber utterly devoid of any light of any kind, there to remain 

 groping about in the dark among its companions, squeezing 

 through narrow side passages, depending on food packed away 

 in the nest itself or in side galleries branching off from the main 

 chamber, eating and sleeping in those cramped quarters and get- 

 ting ever drowsier and drowsier, at last losing consciousness al- 

 together, to awake and become aware in some inexplicable man- 

 ner that it is time to come out into the daylight once more this, 

 indeed, must be a life of strange contrasts. 



But while the dormouse is supposed to be chronically sleepy 

 at all times, owing probably to its fondness for being abroad at 

 night and sleeping all day, even in the longest days of summer, 

 the chipmunk, when it is awake, is most unmistakably awake 

 from sunrise to sunset, apparently without even a nap at midday 

 when the days are at their longest and hottest. 



These ground squirrels are at times rather destructive neigh- 

 bours, about their worst vice being that of digging up newly 

 planted corn. They display a great deal of cleverness in the mat- 

 ter of locating the seed which is usually covered with an inch 

 or two of earth. Their cheek pouches, which reach back almost 

 to their shoulders, enable them to carry away astonishingly large 

 loads and, as they often persist in their nefarious work until the 

 corn is several inches high, the damage wrought by a few families 

 of them is sometimes considerable. 



Generally speaking, it is only in the spring when their sup- 

 plies are running short and before the berries have begun to ripen 

 that they err in this direction. They seldom trouble the ripe 

 corn to any great extent, even in seasons when nuts are scarce. 

 In the West they appear to be much more destructive, and are 

 popularly looked upon as a decided nuisance. They eat all kinds 

 of berries, strawberries, raspberries and dewberries; while apples, 

 pears and tomatoes also find favour in their eyes. 



Early in the spring they go searching for the coral-red berries 

 of the wintergreen and mitchella, where the crisp gray moss is 



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