THE MAMMALS OF NEW JERSEY. 8i 



Genus Tamias Illiger. 



Chipmunks. 



Fossorial squirrels intermediate between the true squirrels and 

 the spermophiles though more closely related to the latter. 



Tamias striatus (Linnaeus). 



Chipmunk, Striped Squirrel, Groundhackee. 



Plate 35- 



Length 9.50 inches. Head brown, back grizzled gray, rump 

 and hind legs rufous chestnut, a narrow black stripe down the 

 middle of the back from the ears to the rump, and on each side a 

 light buff stripe bordered with black, sides of body buffy, below 

 white. Tail grizzly gray above with black tips to the hairs, below 

 rufous edged with black. 



This is the most familiar and most confiding of our smaller 

 mammals, its diurnal habits making it easy to see while it lingers 

 close to man's habitations as long as suitable surroundings are to 

 be found. The chipmunk is a harmless little animal, doing little 

 or no damage to crops or gardens and living on wild nuts, berries, 

 roots and occasionally insects of various sorts. In fall they are 

 especially noticeable in the vicinity of nut trees and may be seen 

 scampering away with their cheeks stuffed with nuts which are 

 hidden away in their storehouses for later use. The burrows of 

 the chipmunk are inconspicuous from the fact that we rarely find 

 any earth about the openings such as mark the entrances to the 

 woodchucks' galleries. Apparently all the exhumed earth is care- 

 fully carried away and deposited at some distance from the opera- 

 tion. In the depth of winter the chipmunks hibernate in their 

 nests underground, but they are not so completely torpid as some 

 other species and are occasionally to be seen even in mid-winter. 

 When alarmed a chipmunk will bolt for his burrow and shoot 

 into it uttering a shrill cry as he goes down, often returning im- 



6 MU 



