236 MAMMALIA. 



" Presently, however, he became comparatively quiet. In this 

 state he remained, possibly, half a minute. He then commenced 

 a vigorous action, as if digging deeper ; but I noticed that he did 

 not get deeper ; on the contrary, he was gradually backing out. I 

 was surprised that, in all his apparent hard work (he worked like a 

 man on a wager) he threw back no dirt. But this vigorous labor 

 could not last long. He was very soon completely above ground ; 

 and then became manifest the object of his earnest work : he was 

 refilling the hole he had made, and repacking the dirt and leaves 

 he had disturbed. Nor was he content with simply refilling and 

 repacking the hole. With his two little hand-like feet he patted 

 the surface, and so exactly replaced the leaves that, when he had 

 completed his task, my eye could detect not the slightest difference 

 between the surface he had so cunningly manipulated, and that 

 surrounding it. Having completed his task, he raised himself into 

 a sitting posture, looked with a very satisfied air, and then silently 

 dodged off into a bush-heap, some ten feet distant. Here he 

 ventured to stop, and set up a triumphant ' chip ! chip ! chip ! ' 



" It was now my turn to dig, in order to discover the little 

 miser's treasures. I gently removed enough of the leaves and fine 

 muck to expose his hoard half a pint of buttercup seeds, Ranun- 

 culus acris." * 



On the western side of the Adirondack region the Chipmunk 

 feeds largely upon the tuberous roots of the dwarf ginseng or 

 ground-nut (Aralia tri folia}, and the yellow grain-like tubers of 

 the unspurred dicentra or squirrel corn (Dicentra Canadensis). 

 The winged seeds of the maple can also be ranked among his staple 

 articles of diet. In June of the present year (1884), Mr. W. E. 

 Bryant shot a Chipmunk, in Lewis County, whose cheek-pouches 

 contained a number of larvae and pupae of insects. 



Of the six species of squirrels known to occur in the Adirondacks, 

 the present is the only one belonging to the group of ground 



* American Naturalist, Vol. IV, No. 4, June, 1870, p. 249. 



