404 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



two weeks later than the Yellow Gopher, and retires in au- 

 tumn about as much earlier, thereby losing a good month of 

 active life. 



TENA- Although very sensitive to cold the Striped-gophers are 



OF LIFE very tenacious of life, and it frequently happens that individuals 



trapped, crushed, or mangled and thrown aside for dead, have 



revived and escaped. 



FOOD Belonging to an order of herbivores, we expect to find this 



animal eating all things that grow above and below the ground — 

 grass, herbage, seeds, berries, roots, and grain; but the creature 

 is quite omnivorous and habitually includes all garbage as well 

 as herbage in its diet. I have known it to eat greasy house- 

 scraps at which a Rabbit would have wabbled its nose in holy 

 horror, as well as offal, insects, feathers, raw meat, small birds, 

 mice, and its fallen comrades. 



The best available light on its food habits is found in 

 Vernon Bailey's Report on the Ground-squirrels,* from which 

 chiefly I compile the following records of its insect, bird, and 

 reptile-eating propensities: 



EATING 



INSECT "They feed especially upon such insects as grasshoppers, 



beetles, caterpillars, and ants." (V. B.) 



*' I have seen it catch and consume the cabbage butterfly 

 repeatedly, and have also watched it digging for cut-worms." 

 (J. N. Houghton, of Grinnell, Iowa.) 



At Ames, Iowa, Professor F. E. L. Beal "saw a Striped 

 Spermophile with a large hairy caterpillar in its mouth." 



The results of the examination of 22 stomachs of this 

 Spermophile, made at Ames, Iowa, are given by Prof. C. P. 

 Gillette. "The animals from which the stomachs were taken 

 were killed on various parts of the College farm, and at intervals 

 from April 19 to August 2. As a result of this examination it 

 was found that insects formed 46 per cent, of the stomach con- 

 tents, with an average number of 13 cut-worms and web-worms 



» U. S. Dept. Agr, 1893, Bull. 4, pp. 38-45. 



