388 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



kept all three species together in a cage; the Yellow Ground- 

 squirrel, although the largest, was bullied by both of its 

 relatives. It chattered its teeth angrily at them for a time, but 

 finally submitted. 



SPEED This creature is a poor runner. The farmer's boy can 



easily outrun it if he finds it far from its hole, and then it has 

 to save its life by dodging — a hopeless shift, indeed, if the boy's 

 usual four-footed colleague happens to be at hand. But it is 

 rarely caught far from home. I doubt if it ever goes voluntarily 

 fifty yards from a burrow. I have known individuals go over 

 a hundred yards to a favourite food, but they do so under 

 special provisions against surprise, as the following note illus- 

 trates : 



Carberry, July 5, 1892. As the sun lowered it fast length- 

 ened the shadows and brought into prominence the smallest 

 depressions on the prairie; it revealed also on a long bank by 

 the twenty-acre wheat field a perfect labyrinth of Ground-squirrel 

 runs (p. 389) leading from all parts of the near prairie for 100 

 yards or more into the grain. The runs had no common plan 

 beyond convergence at the crop, but each main run appeared to 

 have on it a sort of refuge burrow at every ten or fifteen yards. 

 These refuges difi^ered from the residential burrows in being 

 small, inconspicuous, half-hidden in the run, and without 

 mounds. The Ground-squirrels would dodge from one to 

 another, twinkling in out of sight at the slightest alarm. If 

 two happened into the same burrow there was mischief brewed 

 at once, and the weaker had to make a dash across country 

 in search of some more hospitable retreat. 



In August they may be seen all day running down their 

 holes with pouches full of grain and other supplies. Some- 

 times these supplies are not food, but bedding. 



FOOD In food-habits it is much less carnivorous than the other 



two species, and yet is omnivorous. Primarily its diet is roots, 

 leaves, and seeds of prairie plants. 



