DIVISION EIGHT — SCIENCE. 577 



played by this wood rat of the Arroyo Seco.* While they are extremely 

 timid, they take the most remarkable liberties around human habitations at 

 night. In one case they removed some seeds from a box and placed them 

 on a table, so that the owner began to grow superstitious about the singular 

 changes that took place in the night. In another case a wood rat took corn 

 from a bag and half filled the boot leg of a teamster before morning. 



Squirrels. — Of the squirrels, we have the beautiful gray form with 

 fox-like tail, of the upper range, found clinging to the sycamore and other 

 trees, in the canyons ; and the degenerate ground-squirrel of every vacant 

 lot — nature's plow-man, upturning the earth, admitting air and water, so 

 possibly doing some good. This creature, with its voice like the clink of a 

 blaster's hammer, is found everywhere in the vicinity of man's habitation, 

 and is a purely ground form, rarely ascending trees more than eight or ten 

 feet. Some people esteem it a table delicacy, and it probably constituted a 

 prominent feature of the Indian diet in olden times. f There is also a small 

 squirrel {^Spermcphilus spilosomd) occasionally seen, resembling the chip- 

 munk of the East. 



Speaking of the squirrels of Southern California, Van Dyke says : 

 "Above an elevation of 4,000 feet is a gray squirrel, apparently the 

 same as the one found East, though its habits and bark are quite different 

 from those of the latter. At five or six thousand feet is found a thick-set, 

 bob-tailed, striped sided chip munk, about twice the size of the eastern 

 chip munk. It climbs but little, living in the ground and in holes in the 

 rocks and fallen trees. At about the same elevation is sometimes found a 

 squirrel of about the same size, build, and activity as the red squirrel of the 

 East, but of a dull gray color. But the most common squirrel is the ground- 

 squirrel, found mainly in the lowlands, generally in open ground, and dis- 

 appearing at five or six thousand feet, or in very heavy timber. It is about 

 the size of the gray squirrel, but built a trifle heavier behind. Its color is 

 a dirty gray, lightly mottled. Its tail is neither so long, nor so heavily clad 

 with hair as that of the gray squirrel. * * These ground squirrels, 

 with the whole rat, mouse, gopher and hare tribe, can live without water. 

 A dry winter, however, stops their increase, as it does that of the bees, 

 hares, and valley quails. They seem to know there will be a scarcity of 

 food. In such years no young are seen, and in the latter part of the season 

 even the old ones disappear, becoming dormant, and awaiting in their holes 

 the rains of the next winter. ' ' 



Mole. — I have seen only one species of the mole here, but in all proba- 

 bility there are several. Their upturned ridges may often be seen after a 

 rain, when they forage for the worms which constitute their chief food. The 



*Van Dyke gives three species or varieties of native rat, to wit : The laree wood rat, which 

 builds both above and below ground at foot of tree or bush, as Prof. Holder has fully described ; but 

 also a smaller one which builds its nests well up in trees. Over eleven years ago I saw some of these 

 in Wilson canyon that were tvventy five feet or more above ground. A third variety that lives entirely 

 underground, and makes no nest above. 



tlwith others, both ladies and gentlemen, tried ground-squirrel meat, both stewed and fried, 

 while camping on Wilson's peak, and found it really more tender, juicy and palatable than the timber 

 squirrel, of which latter we had plenty, also. Yet I had always been told by the old settlers that these 

 ground squrrels were not fit to eat — that they had a ratty quality and tasted of the ground, etc., — all of 

 which was purely imaginary. Early in 1893 a curious ground squirrel was caught at Eagle Rock val- 

 ley and brought to W. H. Wakeley, the taxidermist of Pasadena, who secured and mounted the specimen 

 as a rare lusus naturae. The right upper incisor had grown and curved inward until it formed a complete 

 circle and came out at the top of the skull through the middle partition ; while the left incisor made a 

 similar curve, 2J4 inches long, but veered sideways so that it turned up outside of the mouth. The 

 tushes of the lower jaw were % inch long. I saw the specimen and measured it myself at Wakeley's 

 Novelty Works, in June, 1894. — Edr. 



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