10101 Rucker, California Ground' Squirrel and Bubonic Plague. 139 



tion of the problem which confronted these men. Experiments 

 were first made with the various poisons to be used in the eradica- 

 tion of ground squirrels, and then an active campaign of scouting 

 was begun. Each of the hunters was supplied with a shot gun, 

 necessary ammunition and equipment. All of the details of the 

 size and number of shot, the quality and amount of the powder to 

 be used, the best ways of securing the samples, transporting them 

 to the nearest express office and shipping them to the laboratory 

 in San Francisco — all had to be evolved. Methods of reports, 

 inspections, and forwarding of supplies all had to be created de 

 novo. For six weeks these men worked without finding a single 

 infected squirrel, and the hopes of even the most optimistic were 

 dropped far below the zero point before the first plague-stricken 

 squirrel was found, twenty miles away from where the sample 

 had been secured the previous year. Then followed another nerve- 

 racking period of quiescence, until on one hot summer's day, after 

 a number of federal officers and representatives of the State Board 

 of Health had traversed many weary miles of country, looking 

 over the work and had stopped at a little country hostelry for the 

 night, they were suddenly electrified by a telephone message from 

 the laboratory to the effect that fourteen infected ground squirrels 

 had been found that dav. 



From that time on, it was an easy matter to find the infected 

 rodents. The periphery of the scouting zone was gradually en- 

 larged, until it was known that all of Contra Costa County, all 

 of Alamenda County to the southward, a portion of Santa Clara 

 County, part of San Benito County, a section of Santa Cruz Coun- 

 ts, and the northern end of Monterey County were infected. To 

 date it is known that an area of over 10,000 square miles contains 

 the disease among these little grey-coated pests. 



So much has been said of the ground squirrel that it may prove 

 of profit to step aside for a moment and consider some of the 

 characteristics of the animal in question. The Citellus Beechyi 

 has been described as follows : 



Size smaller than Otospermophilus grammurus (nearly as large 

 as the eastern grey squirrel) with a more slender body and shorter 

 toil. Ears high and pointed. Mamnnee, six pairs (P. 2, A 2, I. 2=12). 

 Color above brown, grizzled, and annulated with black in a vermicular 

 pattern ; darkest anteriorly, and most grizzled and verm icula ted pos- 



