1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 123 



ing the necessary stores of winter food, especially in the mountains 

 where the summers are short and the winters long. 



Food habits. Most of the food of these squirrels consists of the 

 seeds of conifers of whatever species fall within their range. If 

 the cones of one species fail, there is usually an abundance on some 

 other pine, spruce, or hemlock, and the squirrels gather where the 

 food is most abundant. As soon as the seeds are ripe, the cones are 

 cut from the trees and great quantities buried underground, or in 

 cavities of rocks, under logs or roots of trees, where they can be 

 found during the winter no matter how deep the snow. As soon as 

 the snow falls, the squirrels make long tunnels over the surface of the 

 ground, and as the snow hardens these are kept open and in use 

 throughout the winter. Fresh snow piling up deeper and deeper is a 

 help rather than a hindrance to their winter activities. High up 

 in the mountains, where the snow often reaches a depth of 10 or 15 

 feet, the squirrels are as active during the winter as lower down 

 where little snow has accumulated, and are as healthy and happy as in 

 the spring. Little heaps of cone scales show where the squirrels have 

 been in the habit of eating their meals on some low branches of 

 trees or under the snow in comfortable quarters well protected from 

 cold and wind, and safe from enemies. Sometimes a bushel or more 

 of freshly cut cone scales are found in a heap. Under some trees 

 the accumulation of scales dropped year after year reaches a depth 

 of several feet in a mass of many bushels. Other seeds, nuts, fruits, 

 berries, mushrooms, and insects are eaten to a more or less extent, 

 but the cones furnish most of the food. 



Economic status. Complaints of mischief by these squirrels are 

 rarely heard. Many of the ranchers, campers, and foresters in the 

 mountains appreciate their cheerful notes and bright, interesting 

 ways. To the forester they are even a great help in furnishing the 

 tree seeds necessary for reforesting, as a share of the cones they 

 have stored are often taken and always are found to contain sound 

 seeds. It is also evident that while the squirrels consume for food 

 vast quantities of tree seeds, great numbers of the buried cones are 

 never claimed but remain just underneath the surface of the ground 

 where they may grow and help to replenish the open spaces in 

 the forest. These little squirrels might well be considered the ori- 

 ginal foresters of the mountain slopes. 



SCIUKUS DOUGLASII ALBOLIMBATUS ALLEN 

 SIEBBA CHICKAEEE; GOWACK of the Klamath (C. H. M.) 



Sciums hudsonius calif ornicus Allen, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Bull. 3 : 165, 1890. 



Preoccupied. 

 Sciurus doufflasU allxfiimbatus Allen, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Bull. 10: 453, 



1898. 



Type. Collected in Blue Canyon, Placer County, Calif., by J. A. Allen, 

 October 13, 1886. 



General characters. Slightly larger than d&uglasii with pale yellowish or 

 white belly and white frosted tail. Summer pelage, upper parts dark brown- 

 ish gray, with black ear tufts and stripe along each side; tail dark gray, 

 bordered and tipped with pure white beyond dusky zone and subterminal 

 black area; lower parts pale yellowish or buffy or almost white, shading into 

 yellow on sides of legs and top of feet. Winter pelage, back rusty; sides 



