FIELD AND STUDY 



take a few handfuls of mixed grain in my pocket and 

 distribute it here and there along the stone walls 

 near where I know my little friends have their homes. 

 They soon "catch on," as the boys say, and the 

 sight of me raises expectations among them. After a 

 little time they allow me to come within a few yards 

 of them, showing only an unusual eagerness and 

 curiosity. Then as I move on they quickly gather 

 up the wheat and corn and carry it to their dens. 



The recipients of my bounty seemed to excite 

 the jealousy of the chipmunks that lived farther 

 away, or off the line of my walks. I had often won- 

 dered whether animals of the same kind ever plun- 

 dered one another's stores. I hadbelieved that they 

 did not, but last fall, under the unequal conditions 

 that I established by my limited bounty, I discov- 

 ered that they did. On three occasions I saw chip- 

 munks raiding their neighbors' stores. From the 

 relative size of the robbed and the robber in two 

 cases that I observed, I got the impression that the 

 male was the robber in one case and the female in 

 the other. 



For two years a chipmunk has had a den by the 

 roadside near the stone wall in front of my house, 

 and many a handful of wheat and buckwheat and 

 Indian corn have I placed upon the wall for her, if 

 it is a "her." In July she began to make long trips 

 up and down the stone wall, returning to her den 

 with full pockets, so that by mid-October I con- 

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