ZOOLOGY. 55 



in summer and fall, they feed on the seeds of the pines and firs to some extent ; but their great 

 storehouse of provisions is formed by the thickets of large species of Ceanothus, (G. laevigatas and 

 C. velutinus,) the seeds of which are the favorite food of all the ground squirrels inhabiting, the 

 region where they grow. 



In the Cascade mountains are immense stretches of country where the pine and fir forests 

 have been destroyed by fire — the trees not burned, but killed, and all thrown down by the wind, 

 covering the ground with an almost impenetrable labyrinth of interlocking trunks. Over this 

 surface spring dense and continuous thickets of Ceanothus, and great numbers of clumps of 

 gooseberry bushes, which are loaded and reddened by an unparalleled profusion of large scarlet 

 berries, very beautiful to the eye, but perfectly flat and insipid to the taste. These thickets are 

 the favorite haunts of the little ground squirrels, and they, with the ruffled grouse, find good 

 use for all these scarlet berries. My attention was first called to the fact of their feeding on 

 these berries by the blood red imprints of the squirrels' feet on the smooth and barkless trunks 

 of the fallen pines ; and as these tracks multiplied, I began to wonder at the ferocity of the 

 squirrels of this region, which covered the country with blood. As the gooseberry bushes be- 

 came more numerous, I detected the connexion between their fruit and the crimson tracks, and 

 at the same time found a good reason for the production in such extreme abundance of fruit so 

 entirely useless to man, and apparently so little relished by the man-like bears. 



SPERMOPHILUS DOUGLASII. 



Columbia Gronnd Squirrel. 



Arctcmys (Spermophilus) dottglasii, Rich. F. B. A. I, 1829, 172. 

 Spermy/hilus douglasii, Aud. and Bach. N. Am. Quad. I, 1849, 373 ; pi. xlix. 

 Bated, Gen. Bep. Mammals, 1857, 309. 



Sp. Ch. — Similar in most all respects to S. beecheyi, but with the space on the nape and back, between the light colored 

 more lateral patches, of a uniform dark brown, nearly black. 



The " ground squirrels," as the different species of Spermophilus' are commonly called, are, to 

 a stranger in California, a new and interesting feature of the zoology of the country. He has 

 probably heard of the villages of " prairie dogs" on the plains of central North America, and has 

 listened with interest or incredulity to the stories of these strange communities made up of such 

 incongruous materials as mammals, birds and reptiles, spermophiles, owls, and rattlesnakes. 

 If he should happen at any time to traverse the valley of the Sacramento, in California, he will 

 be no lover of nature if he be not gratified, and even delighted, to see with his own eyes, and to 

 examine closely, the villages of owls and spermophiles which he will be sure to pass. 



These squirrel colonies, composed of individuals of the species S. douglassii and 8. beecheyi, 

 are not organized on the same plan or in similar places with those of the prairie dog (Cynomys 

 ludovicianus.) The prairie dog inhabits open prairies, its villages being composed of closely 

 set burrows, frequently spread over a surface of miles in extent. This species is not found in 

 California, where the spermophiles are all long-tailed, and more or less arboreal in their habits. 

 Nor are they, by any means, as social as the prairie dogs ; a single individual being frequently 

 found living at a distance from all others, usually under some tree, into which he often climbs, 

 and from which you will probably dislodge him by your approach, as his burrow is his citadel, 

 to which he betakes himself on the least alarm. 



We first saw the spermophiles in considerable numbers in the belts of timber which border 

 Suisun, Cache, and Putos creeks. These streams come down from the Coast Range and 



