CHICKAREE 



207 



Above Yosemite Point, that same month, the senior author found the head- 

 quarters of another chickaree which had been similarly engaged. This 

 animal had cut down about 180 cones and these were cached at the two 

 sides of a log within an area about 20 by 60 feet. If we assume that there 

 is 1 chickaree to every 4 acres of territory in the Canadian Zone of our 

 Yosemite section, then the 250 or more square miles of this zone harbor 

 approximately 40,000 squirrels. If each squirrel on the average cuts but 

 250 cones a season, the annual harvest of fir cones in the Canadian Zone 

 on the west slope of the Yosemite region would be about 10 million. In 



Fig. 31. Kitchen middens of Sierra Chickaree: shelled-out green cones of Jeffrey 

 pine; Merced Lake, August 28, 1915. 



addition there are many Red Squirrels in the Hudsonian Zone, and some 

 in the Canadian Zone of the Mono region, all cutting down cones of the 

 various species of coniferous trees present in those areas. 



One morning in mid-October at Aspen Valley, the same squirrel that 

 had garnered the great number of white fir cones referred to above was 

 seen to run down the home tree, grasp a cone in its mouth, and ascend the 

 trunk to a short horizontal stub about 30 feet above the ground. Here 

 it sat up on its haunches, grasped the two ends of the cone by its forefeet, 

 and proceeded to rapidly strip off the scales. After a few scales had been 

 removed there would ensue a few moments of rapid chewing of the exposed 

 seeds and then more scales would be cut off and come fluttering to the 

 gl-ound. Most frequently the squirrel begins at the stem end and, gradually 



