FAUNA OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS AND ALASKA PENINSULA 315 



but he thought that they had come from Unimak Island or 

 Morzhovoi Bay. The chief was a little uncertain about the precise 

 locality, and Osgood's statement was very definite, so it is likely 

 that they came from Nushagak. In any case, it is the same 

 subspecies. 



According to Bill Dirks, chief of Atka Village, 10 or 12 ground 

 squirrels were brought from Unalaska by Nick Bolshanin and 

 were liberated on Kavalga Island, in 1920, where they increased 

 in number. These two introductions, on Unalaska and Kavalga 

 Islands, were the only ones that we learned about. 



It is obvious that ground squirrels are able to cross narrow 

 channels of water to reach adjacent islands. In 1925, I was 

 informed that a ground squirrel had been seen swimming across 

 a bay in Isanotski Strait. It came to a net, ran along on the floats 

 for a distance, then swam on again. 



When I arrived at King Cove on April 25, 1925, the ground 

 squirrels were active, though it was not known how much earlier 

 they had been out. On May 2, on Unimak Island, it was noted 

 that they were sluggish and not much in evidence, which prob- 

 ably was due to the cold, disagreeable weather that prevailed at 

 that time. Beals and Longworth, in 1941, saw the first ground 

 squirrels on April 15. A trapper, Nick Kristensen, declared that 

 occasionally he had seen ground squirrel tracks in January, pre- 

 sumably in warm spells of weather, but that he had dug them out 

 in winter and found them fully dormant. Osgood (1904, p. 32) 

 said "The animals were more or less active at Cold Bay as late 

 as October 18, although comparatively cold weather was prevail- 

 ing." 



On May 25, 1925, on a plateau near Aghileen Pinnacles, I dis- 

 covered that ground squirrels had burrowed up through the snow 

 from their place of hibernation, and were living on this snowfield, 

 sometimes wandering far from the burrow. 



On June 3, a ground squirrel was observed pulling a big mouth- 

 ful of grass into a den, no doubt for a nest for the young. Others 

 were similarly engaged on subsequent days — the last observation 

 being on June 8. 



Though the food of the ground squirrel is chiefly vegetation, 

 they will eat animal matter. Several came to my camp on Alaska 

 Peninsula to nibble at the fat on a bear hide stretched out to dry. 

 The stomach of a specimen taken on Unimak Island May 8, 1925, 

 examined by the Food Habits Research Section of the U. S. Bio- 

 logical Survey, contained the following items: 



