78 RODENTS. 
leave the Adirondack region in July, since it is but seldom that there is a good 
crop of beech-nuts in two successive years. The young are born in the spring, and 
leave the nest by June. 
Chipmunks collect an astonishing quantity of food for the winter, which is 
carried to its place of deposit in their capacious cheek-pouches. In addition to 
regular storehouses, these animals lay up a portion of their winter supply here and 
there beneath the leaves of the forest. In a hole tenanted by four chipmunks, 
Audubon and Bachman relate that in the nest itself they found about a gill of 
corn, and in the communicating galleries upwards of about a quart of nuts, a peck 
of acorns, about two quarts of buckwheat, and a small quantity of Indian corn and 
grass seeds. Generally the chipmunk keeps to the ground, although it will often 
run some few feet up the trunk of a tree, and when pursued, if its hole be not 












THE COMMON CHIPMUNK (3 hat. size). 
°o 
accessible, will take refuge among the branches. Instances are, however, on record 
where these animals have been observed regularly ascending tall trees in search of 
food; and they seemed perfectly at home among the boughs, although they never 
leapt from branch to branch after the manner of the true squirrels. 
In regard to its general mode of life, Dr. Merriam observes that “the chip- 
munk establishes his headquarters in some log or stump, or in a hole excavated by 
himself in the earth, generally among the roots of a tree. He is partial to brush- 
heaps, wood piles, stone walls, rail fences, accumulations of old rubbish, and other 
places that afford him a pretty certain escape, and at the same time enable him to 
see what is transpiring outside. For, though by no means wary, he delights in 
these loosely sheltered hiding-places, where he can whisk in and out at will, peep 
unobserved at passers-by, and dart back when prudence demands. If suddenly 
surprised, he utters a sharp chip-per, 7, 7,7, and makes a sudden quick dash for his 
retreat, which is no sooner reached than, simultaneously with the disappearance of 
