Common Chipmunk 343 



When autumn came the ground was pebbled over with 

 hundreds of bushels of acorns, chestnuts and hickory nuts, 

 but there were no Chipmunk hordes. There seemed to be a 

 slight increase in their number, but less than reproductive 

 increase would have explained. Four times in the third week 

 of October did I hear a solitary Chipmunk strive to raise the 

 chorus as he perched on some stump, but in each case there 

 was but one voice. The merry host of a year before was no 

 longer in the woods. 



The only migration I have seen among them is like that of 

 the flowers — the summer, above ground; the winter, below. 



There is, in this connection, nevertheless, another curious 

 circumstance that I have noted each year at Cos Cob, Conn. 

 It is the practical disappearance in July of the otherwise 

 abundant Chipmunks. I do not know of any satisfactory 

 explanation, for when August comes they seem as numerous 

 as ever. 



The greatest abundance of this species that I ever saw in abun- 

 the North-west was at Ingolf, which is on the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway just east of the Manitoban line. During a visit there 

 in 1904 I found both this species and Eutamias neglectus in 

 numbers about the railroad siding, where long lines of grain 

 cars, jolted at start or stop, had made the place a delectable 

 forage ground for the ever-growing hordes of Chipmunks that 

 found an ideal residence among the tumbled rocks composing 

 the railroad dump. Among these they had excavated, or 

 found, endless labyrinths which doubtless afforded them 

 security from many enemies. 



The railway is an important agent in the distribution of 

 several animals, forming, as it does, a plain sunny opening in the 

 forest, a continuous sheltering bank on the prairie, a means of 

 crossing rivers, and a long chain of food supplies through the 

 waste from grain cars. 



During the two days at Ingolf I saw perhaps 25 of the 

 large species, but the residents told me that they were now far 

 from their usual number; on warm days earlier in the month 



