OF THE UNITED STATES 409 



In our southern districts, where the winters of course are very 

 mild, these little animals remain out the entire year round, but 

 are never harmful to the crops of man, being simply gleaners 

 rather than robbers and destroyers. Other forms of the genus 

 differ but little in habit from our common eastern species, and 

 indeed, even their relatives in various parts of Europe, Asia, and 

 eastern Africa, that are also small striped ground-squirrels, are 

 very similar in these respects. 



Several years ago when writing about New Mexican squirrels 

 (see Fig. 108) I said: Next, to form our acquaintance with the 

 third and last species of squirrel which occurs in this region, let 

 us, this balmy June afternoon, pick our way through the fallen 

 timber and masses of loose rock that incumber the bottom of one 

 of the vast caiions hereabouts. In such a place you seat yourself 

 for a moment upon one of the rough and partly-imbedded sand- 

 stone boulders, which long since took its plunge adown the canon 

 side to its present resting ground. Here you will be obliged to 

 wait patiently for some ten or fifteen minutes in perfect quiet, 

 when in all probability your ears will then be saluted by a not 

 unpleasing little chirrup, which but partly reminds you of a 

 sound often heard in the old, familiar woodlands at home. 



With your eyes accustomed to peering into the recesses of na- 

 ture's material that goes to make up the side of one of the rugged 

 canon walls in this part of the country, you are soon enabled to 

 discover the presence of the author of this " chip-chip, chip ree, 

 r-ree, r-reee,chip-r-r-rupp" for stealthily issuing from his hiding 

 place and coming over a broad sandstone slab with little meas- 

 ured steps and many nervous twitches of his tail, which is held 

 almost vertical, you behold the timid little Gila chipmunk, one of 

 the most interesting representatives of an exceedingly interest- 

 ing genus. If you sit perfectly motionless, another, then another 

 will now soon make their appearance at different and unexpected 

 points, until fully half a dozen of these engaging little creatures 

 may be in sight at one time. But upon the slightest movement 

 of your body, off they all scamper to the weather side of rock, 

 root, or rubbish pile. You are not inclined to wait, however, 

 another quarter of an hour, or perhaps longer, for a specimen, 

 and as a fine male, bolder than the rest, has not taken part in the 

 first general rush of the stampede, but stands displaying the 

 pretty mixed gray of his back and the bright, though dark, fox 

 color of the under side of his handsome tail, you awake the echo 



