56 ZOOLOGY. 



cross, with sinuous courses, the plain which forms the western half of the Sacramento valley, 

 till they meet the Sacramento and into it discharge themselves. The Sacramento valley here, 

 as generally, is nearly level and destitute of trees, except such as border the streams. These 

 belts of timber vary in width, from a single line of trees along the water s edge, to strips of 

 forest one and even two miles wide on either side. Except the willows and sycamores on the 

 river bottoms, these timber belts are composed of magnificent oaks of a species peculiar to Cali 

 fornia, (Quercus longiglandis,) which has a wide spreading growth like the English oak, as it 

 grows at Hampton Court and Windsor. 



The trunk, rarely less than two, frequently seven or eight feet in diameter, rises eight, ten 

 or twelve feet from the ground, and then divides into huge arms, which throw themselves out 

 at rifht angles, and, bending low to the ground, cover a surface of one hundred or more feet in 

 diameter. These trees are not thickly set, but usually scattered over the turf-covered ground 

 in graceful groups of giants, whose branches touch each other with intervening open glades, 

 sunny and smooth, of one, two, or three acres. Under these oaks not a bush can be seen ; and 

 below the limbs, where the trees are thickest, there is nothing to impede the view over the grass- 

 covered surface but the colossal trunks which gather in the perspective and limit vision. Here 

 the spermophiles live in thousands ; under each tree a sub-colony which have, parent and 

 child, pierced the earth with their burrows until they have thrown up, of the excavated 

 material, a mound, not often more than from twelve to eighteen inches in height, yet very 

 perceptible to the eye. 



These squirrels are long-tailed and long-eared for spermophiles, and have much the form and 

 action of the true squirrels. They are very timid, starting at every noise, and on every intru 

 sion into their privacy dropping from the trees, or hurrying in from their wanderings, and 

 scudding to their holes with all possible celerity ; arrived at the entrance, however, they stop to 

 reconnoitre, standing erect as squirrels rarely, and spermophiles habitually do, and looking 

 about to satisfy themselves of the nature and designs of the intruder. Should this second view 

 justify their flight, or a motion or step forward still further alarm them, with a peculiar move 

 ment, like that of a diving duck, they plunge into their burrows, not to venture out till all 

 cause of fear is past. Should you in the meantime have seated yourself with your back against 

 a tree, and have remained for a time as immovable as the trunk against which you lean, you 

 will soon see sundry little heads protruded from the burrows, with as many pairs of eyes and ears 

 skilled to detect the least sign of danger from their equally feared enemies, the coyote, the Cali 

 fornia vulture, the red-shouldered and red-tailed hawk, and man himself. If, however, your 

 silence and quietness persuade them that you are none of these, they will swarm forth from their 

 holes, and at first timidly, but, gaining confidence, more fearlessly, engage in all the sports 

 and antics for which the Sciuridae are noted, and in which none excel the species under con 

 sideration. It is a pretty sight, and one to which I have often treated myself, to sit down 

 quietly under these old oaks and watch the squirrels running about over the grass and trees, 

 gamboling and playing together. As far as the eye could reach through the vista the sprightly 

 movements of these innocent animals could be discerned. 



Their most important element of subsistence is the acorn, which the trees produce plentifully, 

 and which the squirrels store up in their holes. In the absence of acorns, they have recourse to 

 such roots and seeds as they can glean in the vicinity of their habitations. In the neighborhood 

 of cultivated grounds they inflict material injury on the growing crops ; one farmer, on Cache 

 creek, telling me that the squirrels had eaten up full half his wheat. The number then swarm 

 ing over his fields and fences was incalculable. 



