MAMMALS. 37 



A coyote following a four-point b.uck Avas several times charged by it 

 and driven away, until finally another coyote joined the first and 

 together they quickly caught and killed the buck before Gird could 

 reach them on his horse. A few mountain lions in the park range 

 mainly on the west slope, where the deer are ipost abundant and form 

 their principal prey. The control of such predatory species is neces- 

 sary to a good supply of game, even in a region so favorable to game 

 animals as the Glacier Park. 



Order RODENTIA: Gnawing Animals. 

 Family SCIURIDi^: Squirrels, Chipmunks, Woodchucks, etc. 



Richardson Pine Squirrel : Sciurus hudsonicus i^ichardsoni 

 Bachman. — The only tree squirrels in the park are the little dark- 

 red, bushy-tailed pine squirrels which are abundant throughout the 

 length and breadth of its timbered areas. Through the breeding sea- 

 son of spring and early summer they are quiet and inconspicuous, but 

 laie in summer, in autumn, and in winter they are busy, noisy, and 

 much in evidence. As soon as the young are old enough to be out 

 of the nest and take care of themselves their cheery call note — a long, 

 high-pitched, vibrant cherrrrrrrrrr — is he'ard all through the woods, 

 most frequently in the early morning, but sometimes throughout 

 their daylight working hours. The Canadian Zone coniferous forest 

 is their home, but occasionally they are found a little below its edges 

 on the eastern slope and slightly into the yellow-pine Transition of 

 the Flathead Valley and also up into the edge of the dwarf timber of 

 the Hudsonian Zone. The overlapping, however, is not more than 

 is usual for a species which fully occupies its zone and scatters out 

 slightly at the edges. The lodgepole pine, more fully than any other 

 tree, marks their full range and furnishes board and lodging for more 

 of their numbers than does any other tree, although every conifer 

 contributes more or less to their food supply. Their nests are placed 

 indifferently in the branches of Douglas or Engelmann spruce, the 

 various pines, balsam, hemlock, tamarack, or cedar. 



Before the seeds are fully matured in the cones they begin to serve 

 as food for the squirrels, and when well ripened the cones are cut from 

 pine, spruce, and fir trees in such numbers that the woods often re- 

 sound with their steady thumping on ground and logs. During au- 

 tumn great numbers of cones are cut off and stored in little pockets or 

 holes in the ground, under logs, rocks, or brush heaps, or in the piles of 

 old cone scales at the base of feeding trees, where they can be readily 

 found under the deep snows of winter. The long cones of the moun- 

 tain white pine are cut off and dragged into piles for winter food or 

 eaten on the ground, as they are too heavy to be held and eaten on the 

 branch of a tree. The big nutlike seeds of the scrubby white-barked 



