RO D E N T I A 26l 



annum, after a clean-up of these squirrels produced 20 tons. 14 A 

 desert ground squirrel (C. cryptospilotus) contained only poisoned al- 

 falfa leaves. 14 "* Rock squirrel (O. grammurus): food in Colorado 

 seeds of various kinds, apples, cherries, apricots, chokecherries, black- 

 berries, squashes, melons, peas, grain of all kinds, yucca seed pods and 

 Indian breadroot. 15 The cheek pouches of one contained fifteen apri- 

 cot pits and of another contained fifty. 16 Say ground squirrel (Cal- 

 lospermophilus lateralis) and Wortman ground squirrel (C. I. vjort- 

 mani), both popularly known as "big chipmunk," in Colorado feed 

 upon "seeds of various kinds and garden truck. In some localities they 

 are a great pest to mountain gardeners." In Arizona the Say ground 

 squirrel is fond of the seeds of Frazera speciosa and Pentstemon. 17 

 It is one of the hosts of the immature stages of the "spotted fever 

 tick/' and should be destroyed about ranches in infected districts. 18 

 The southern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) has been frequently 

 detected in gnawing the bark of trees, but probably does little or no 

 damage in this way. 19 The park ground squirrel (Citellus spilosoma 

 pratensis) feeds on green herbage, seeds and grasshoppers. 20 



The California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus grammurus bee- 

 cheyi) is very abundant and destructive in portions of California, 

 where it feeds upon "walnuts, almonds, apricots, peaches, prunes, 

 apples, olives, figs, oranges, certain vegetables and forage crops, and 

 all of the grains, and also damages vineyards and young orange 

 groves, the magnitude of its depredations amounting to hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars annually." In a twenty-acre vineyard they "com- 

 pletely destroyed five acres." The principal damage done by them is 

 to grain. "They devour barley, wheat and oats when the seed is first 

 sown ; they dig up and carry away the sprouting kernels ; they invade 

 the fields of ripening grain and feast upon it until harvest time; and 

 when it is cut and stacked they concentrate about the stacks and at- 

 tack it vigorously, eating all they can and laboring tirelessly to carry 



"Burnett, The Wyoming spermophile or ground squirrel (Citellus elegans), 

 Office Colorado State Entomologist Circular No. 9, 1913; The Wyoming ground 

 squirrel in Colorado, with suggestions for control, Circular No. 20, 1916; Circular 

 No. 25, 1918; Life history studies of the Wyoming ground squirrel (Citellus elegans 

 elegans) in Colorado, Colorado Exper. Sta. Bull. No. 393, 1931. 



14 ~ a Moore, Journ. Mammalogy, xi, 87, 1930. 



15 Burnett, Office Colorado State Entom. Circular No. 25, p. 27, 1918. 



18 Warren, Mammals of Colorado, p. 106, 1910. 



17 Merriam, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 3, pp. 53, 55, 1890. 



18 Birdseye, Farmers' Bull, No. 484, 1912. 



19 Brooks, Note on a feeding habit of the gray squirrel, Journ. Mammalogy, rv, 

 257-258, 1923. 



20 Merriam, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 3, pp. 53, 55, 1890. 



