38 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



pine near timberline are a favorite food wherever they can be ob- 

 tained. The little hard cones of the lodgepole pine, with their small 

 seeds, mean hard work for small returns, but they are always abun- 

 dant and are easily held in the hands and eaten nutlike on the 

 branch of the tree. The small spruce, balsam, hemlock, and tamarack 

 cones are usually well filled with rich, oily seeds which are eagerly 

 sought by the squirrels, unless larger and more desirable seeds are 

 available. As there are no real nuts in the country the cones are 

 stored for winter, and the ample stores usuallj' last the squirrels until 

 the next fall's crop is ripe. In summer many mushrooms and some 

 green plants are eaten, and mushrooms are tucked away in dry places 

 or under the bark or on branches of the trees, where they become 

 well dried for winter food. Late in winter the squirrels evidently 

 feel the need of green food, as they often cut the tips from pine 

 branches and eat the inner bark of the twigs just back of the tips. 

 Some seeds and berries also are eaten in summer, and the squirrels 

 occasionally gather around the camps and hotels for scattered gi'ain, 

 crumbs, and scraps of such food as bread, butter, and bacon. 



Each squirrel has its own hunting and storing ground where its 

 winter supplies are gathered and hoarded, and woe to any other 

 squirrel that invades its territory after the storing is begun. Owing 

 to the necessitj' of each squirrel's providing for its own needs in this 

 manner, the animals become solitary to a great extent, but indulge 

 their social instincts by loudly calling back and forth while at work. 

 In winter they scamper over the- crusted snow in great glee and in 

 evident enjoyment of the cold weather and the deep snow through 

 which they burrow to their tunnels underneath. In spring as the 

 snow disappears their network of tunnels made over the surface of 

 the ground is gradually exposed and disappears when no longer 

 needed. 



In June the four to six young are born in the big grass nests up 

 among the branches of the trees or in well-lined hollow trunks. 

 For a long time they are naked and helpless, and apparently they 

 do not usually come out of the nests as half-grown squirrels until 

 the latter part of July. They are carefully watched and nursed 

 and fed by the mother squirrel until they have learned the ways of 

 the woods, and by the latter part of August have scattered out, each 

 storing his own winter supplies or all worldng and storing together 

 as a family for the winter's supply about the old parental tree. 

 Usually the families do not entirely break up before the following 

 sioring. 



Apparently the cutting of cones and branch tips has no injurious 

 effect upon the forest, and the storing of cones aids in planting and 

 distributing tree groAvth. The stores of cones are often used by the 

 foresters as the best source of seed supply where tree seeds are being 



