TAMIAS STRIATUS. 2 35 



odd years (nut years), remaining- till the followino- July. They 

 then depart and are not seen ai^ain till the autumn of the next year. 

 Hence they are here about ten months and absent about fourteen 

 months, the period of greatest abundance beino- in June of the 

 even )'ears (when there are no nuts). 



They are most industrious creatures, and, though small, lay up 

 an- astonishingly large supply of food. Audubon and Bachman, 

 who once dug out a nest occupied b)- four Chipmunks, speak thus 

 of the larder : " There was about a gill of wheat and buckwheat in 

 the nest ; but in the galleries we afterwards dug out, we obtained 

 about a quart of the beaked hazel nuts (Corylus rostratus), nearly 

 a peck of acorns, some grains of Indian corn, about two quarts of 

 buckwheat, and a very sm^ll quantit)- of grass seeds." * 



In addition to their store-houses, they frequently, like the gray 

 squirrel, make little caches, burying here and there beneath the 

 leaves the contents of their cheek-pouches. Mr. Ira Sayles thus 

 graphically describes this habit : — 



" I lately noticed in my garden a bright-eyed Chipmunk, Sciurns 

 striatus, advancing along a line directly towards me. He came 

 briskly forward, without deviating a hair's breadth to the right or 

 the left, until within two feet of me ; then turned square towards my 

 left — his right — and went about three feet or less. Here he paused 

 a moment and gave a sharp look all around him, as if to detect 

 any lurking spy on his movements. ( H is distended cheeks revealed 

 his business : he had been out foraging.) He now put his nose to 

 the ground, and, aiding this member with both forepaws, thrust 

 his head and shoulders down through the dry leaves and soft muck, . 

 half burying himself in an instant. 



" At first, I thought him after the bulb of an Erythroninni. that 

 grew directly in front of his face and about three inches from it. I 

 was the more confirmed in this supposition, by the shaking of the 

 plant. 



* Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. I, 1846, p. 70. 

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