40 



WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



protected nests the fmir to six young are born and nursed by the 

 mother until, old enough to come out and gather their oAvn food at 

 night. With their big bkck eyes, soft fur, and rounded heads they 

 are almost owl-like in appearance as well as habits, and if taken while 

 young become very tame and make delightful pets. They are active 

 all winter, and become so densely furred that the cold has no terrors 

 for them, even at night when it is most bitter. No matter how deep 

 the snow, they ti'avel freely from tree to tree gathering their food 

 from the seeds of conifers or from the stores of cones cut oil in 

 autumn and put away where they can be found under the deep snow. 

 Occasionally a track is seen where one has dropped w4th widespread 

 feet upon the snow tn the middle of an open space, either to burrow 



Fig. 6. — No. 1, Yellow-bellied chipmunk ; No. 2, pale 13-lined ground squirrel ; No. 3, 

 mantled ground squirrel. Skins from study series in United States National Museum 

 collection. 



down to the ground and come out at some distant place or to lope over 

 the surface of the snow to the nearest tree or stump or log, where food 

 is to be found. They seem to be even more omnivorous than most 

 squirrels, and besides eating a wide variety of seeds they are fond of 

 almost any camp provisions, including biscuits, crackers, prunes, 

 raisins, rolled oats, or scraps of bacon and other meat. 



Yellow-bellied Chipmunk: Eutamias lutelventris (Allen). — The 

 yellow-bellied chipmunk is the middle sized of the three species inhab- 

 iting the Glacier Park, and while all have the many-striped back, 

 this is the only one wdth the yellow extending across the belly in a way 

 to give it its common name. Only w hen they sit up is this character 

 shown, however, and as they scamper over the ground it is not always 

 easy to tell one species from another. 



