STORY OF GRANNY, THE MOUNTAIN SQUIRREL 



CHARLES D. WALCOTT 



Smithsonian Institution 



When collecting fossils around the west slope of the south 

 ridge of Mount Wapta in 1911 rock squirrels began to come to 

 the quarry we were opening. At lunch time we threw them bits 

 of bread and crackers, and later carried up nuts to give them. 

 They became very tame, and when we returned the following 

 year (1912) one of them that we named Granny, because she 

 apparently had two generations of young squirrels that came 

 with her, would run up on our legs and shoulders, and if we 

 did not promptly give her something to eat she would give a 

 sharp chirp to call attention. One rainy day when crouched 

 under a rubber blanket at lunch time, Granny came and seeing 

 a cake of chocolate lying on my knee made a grab for it, run- 

 ning up my arm and over my shoulder so as to jump to the rocks 

 behind. I made a grab for her, catching her by the end of the 

 tail, which resulted in the snapping of her tail about midway. 

 The following year (1913) she was about again as usual, being 

 easily recognized by her stub tail. 



We did not visit the quarry from 1913 until the latter part of 

 July, 1917. Just after a blast had been fired, which was the 

 signal to the squirrels that we were about to eat lunch, we saw 

 two or three of them coming down from the cliffs above. When 

 eating luncheon, Granny suddenly appeared at the edge of the 

 quarry. I called her, " Granny," and whistled as we had in 

 the years before. She immediately ran across the floor of the 

 quarry, jumped up on my foot and ran up my leg, finally sitting 

 up and begging for something to eat as she had done in 1913. 

 There were three strange persons in the quarry, and she would 

 not go near them for several days until she had had opportunity 

 of getting acquainted. The striking feature of this incident is 

 that this mountain squirrel should have remembered through 

 a period of four years and at once ran and jumped up on me 

 as she had been accustomed to doing previously. 



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