Septembetj 1945 



Brown & Yeager: Squirrels in Illinois 



509 



Caching in Michigan fox squirrels was 

 well described by Cahalane (1942). The 

 stored foods observed in the present Illi- 

 nois study were mainly hickory nuts, wal- 

 nuts, pecans and acorns, which were com- 

 monly buried in the ground. Only one 



Squirrels seem to have the ability to de- 

 tect unsound nuts and acorns, usually 

 fruits undeveloped or worm eaten. By 

 what means the)- make this distinction is 

 not known, but we have many observations 

 of squirrels dropping unsound nuts almost 





30. — "Cuttings" on the ground under a hickory tree, Coles County, September, 1943. 



instance of cavity storage was found : a 

 gallon or more of sweet gum {Liquid- 

 amhar styraciflua) capsules in the hollow 

 base of a tree of this species, fig. 28. The 

 cache, on the Horse Shoe Lake Game 

 Refuge, Alexander County, was the work 

 of a gray squirrel. In storing, squirrels 

 usually bury only one nut or acorn in a 

 place, carrying each to a point 50 to 100 

 feet from the food tree by the most direct 

 route. 



Storing begins about September 1, and 

 in both 1940 and 1941 it was noticed first 

 in gray squirrels. It seems to be an ex- 

 tension of the forenoon and afternoon 

 feeding periods, and is conducted with 

 fewer-than-usual alerts for danger. Har- 

 vesting is rather thorough ; once cleaned, 

 the trees are visited only infrequently. In 

 trees nearly stripped, squirrels were ob- 

 served to go to the uppermost branches 

 and descend in spiral fashion until a nut 

 was found. Acorns and nuts are gleaned 

 later from the ground, but apparently the 

 storing of fallen fruits does not awaken in 

 squirrels the intensity of purpose compa- 

 rable to that shown early in the season 

 when stores are gathered directly from the 

 trees. 



instantly after picking them up. The un- 

 huiled nuts they dropped that were exam- 

 ined by us usually showed only one set of 

 incisor marks ; the hulled nuts showed 

 little if any "cutting." 



In feeding, squirrels ordinarily sit up- 

 right on their hind legs, whether on a 

 branch, stump, log or the ground. They 

 possess great skill in handling food with 

 their front paws while eating, fig. 29. 

 Gray squirrels often eat on the spot where 

 they find food, but sometimes, as with fox 

 squirrels usually, they carry the food to a 

 favorite eating place, such as a horizontal 

 branch, a log or stump. Animals of both 

 species leave abundant signs in the form 

 of "cuttings," figs. 30 and 31, and hunters 

 habitually locate them by looking under 

 hickory, walnut, pecan or oak trees to de- 

 termine the extent and recency of feeding 

 activity. The animals dislodge from trees 

 more fruits than they eat but they usually 

 eat cleanly the nuts and acorns they open. 



Neither fox nor gray squirrels take a 

 large number of foods in making any one 

 meal. The writers opened scores of 

 stomachs, but seldom found more than 

 four or five foods in any one stomach, and 

 often only one or two. Items present in 



