SMALLER MAMMALS OF NORTH AMERICA 



549 



THE EASTERN CHIPMUNK (Tamias 

 striatus and its relatives) 



{Por illustration, see page 542) 



The chipmunks are close relatives of the tree 

 squirrels, but live mainly on the ground, are 

 provided with cheek pouches for carrying food 

 to their hidden stores, and have many ways 

 similar to those of the spermophiles, or ground 

 squirrels. They are nearly circumpolar in dis- 

 tribution, ranging through eastern Europe and 

 northern Asia as well as from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific in North America. On this con- 

 tinent they are far more numerous in species 

 and individuals than in the Old World, and 

 their center of abundance appears to lie in the 

 mountainous western half of the United States. 

 Their extreme range extends from near the 

 Arctic Circle in Canada to Durango and Middle 

 Lower California, Mexico. 



As a group the chipmunks are widely known 

 for their grace, beauty of coloration, and 

 sprightly waj^s. Among the handsomest and 

 most familiar is the common chipmunk of 

 Canada and the United States east of the Great 

 Plains. Within this area it is divided into ' 

 several geographic races, of which the best 

 known is the brightly colored animal occupy- 

 ing all the wooded region from the Great 

 Lakes to Nova Scotia and New England, which 

 is the subject of the accompanying illustration. 

 Its vertical distribution extends from sea level 

 to the summit of Mount Washington, where 

 it may be seen on pleasant summer days. 



The eastern chipmunks, like most of their 

 kind, belong to the forest and its immediate 

 environment. Favorite haunts are rocky ledges 

 covered with vines and brush, half-cleared land, 

 the brushy borders of old pasture fences, stone 

 walls, and similar situations. In early days 

 they were so plentiful in places that they made 

 serious inroads on the scanty crops of the 

 settlers, and bounties were offered for their 

 destruction. 



No one who visits the woods of the eastern 

 States or Canada can fail to observe with 

 pleasure the alert, attractive ways of these little 

 squirrel-like animals. They are everywhere, 

 including the vicinity of summer camps in the 

 forest, and, if encouraged, prove most attractive 

 and friendly neighbors. To such small beasts 

 the world is peopled with enemies against which 

 the only safeguard is eternal watchfulness. 

 This accoimts for the hesitating advances and 

 retreats so characteristic of these chipmunks, 

 which at the first sudden movement of any 

 suspicious object, or loud noise, disappear like 

 a flash. They soon learn to recognize a friend 

 and in many places come regularly into camp 

 buildings to receive food. I doubt, however, if 

 they ever become quite so friendly as some 

 squirrels under similar conditions. 



Like most of the squirrel tribe, they are en- 

 dowed with much curiosity, and at the appear- 

 ance of anything unusual, but not too alarming, 

 they seek some safe vantage point from which 

 to peer at it with every sign of interest. They 



are extremely timid and wary, however, and 

 if doubtful move by Httle cautious runs, stop- 

 ping to sit up and look about, often mounting 

 a stump, log, or a side of a tree trunk for the 

 purpose, the tail all the time moving with slow 

 undulations. If alarmed they dash away to 

 the nearest shelter, the tail held nearly or 

 quite erect and sometimes quivering excitedly. 

 When running to shelter they often utter chat- 

 tering cries of alarm. Their principal enemies 

 are cats, weasels, martens, foxes, snakes, birds 

 of prey, and the untamed small boy with his 

 dog. Weasels, the supreme terror of their ex- 

 istence, follow them to the depths of their 

 burrows and kill them ruthlessly. 



These chipmunks are sociable and playful, 

 often pursuing one another, first one and then 

 the other being the pursuer, as though in a 

 game. They race along fence tops and old 

 logs and up stumps and even the lower parts 

 of tree trunks. Lovers of bright, sunny weather, 

 they usually remain hidden in their burrows 

 during stormy days. If they venture out at 

 such times they are quiet and show none of 

 the mercurial liveliness which characterizes 

 them when the weather is pleasant. 



Their food includes a great variety of culti- 

 vated and wild plants, as wheat, buckwheat, 

 corn, grass seed, ragweed seed, hazelnuts, 

 acorns, beechnuts, strawberries, blueberries, 

 wintergreen berries, mushrooms, and many 

 others. In addition they eat May beetles and 

 other insects and insect larvae, snails, occa- 

 sional frogs, salamanders, small snakes, and 

 many young birds and eggs. 



At all seasons they fill their cheek pouches 

 with food to be carried away to their dens, but 

 toward the end of summer or early fall they 

 work industriously laying up stores of seeds 

 and nuts. Sometimes these stores, hidden in 

 chambers excavated for the purpose or in 

 hollow logs and similar places, contain several 

 quarts of beechnuts or other nuts or seeds. 

 Small quantites of such food are hidden here 

 and there under the leaves or in shallow pits 

 in the ground. Stpre-rooms in one burrow con- 

 tained a peck of chestnuts, cherry pits, and dog- 

 wood berries, and another had a half bushel 

 of hickory nuts. 



While at a summer camp I once saw one of 

 these chipmunks give an exhibition of the ex- 

 quisitely keen power of scent which must be 

 necessary to recover scattered stores. The 

 chipmunk had been coming repeatedly down a 

 wooded slope in full view for twenty-five yards 

 or more to the floor of the porch for food 

 supplied by the campers. While it was absent 

 carrying food to its burrow I placed a few nut 

 meats on the flat top of a stump about fifteen 

 feet to one side of the porch and farther away 

 than the point where the chipmunk was being 

 fed bread crumbs. On its return several 

 minutes later, instead of going as usual to the 

 porch, it ran directly to the stump, climbed 

 up it, and promptly made off with the nuts, 

 which it had evidently located from afar. They 

 sometimes climb beeches and other trees to 

 gather nuts even to a height of fifty or sixty 



