SOME SIERRAN CHIPMUNKS 



By Harey S. Swarth 

 With Notes on Photography of Small Mammals by Joseph Dixon 



(Contribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the 

 University of California) 



THE timbered portions of California, which means the 

 mountains for the most part, do not support as large a 

 squirrel population as conditions apparently warrant — not 

 nearly equal to that found in the hardwood forests of eastern 

 North America, for example — but to make up for this de- 

 ficiency there is certainly an abundance of chipmunks, both of 

 species and individuals. 



The traveler through the mountains finds them almost con- 

 stantly in view, scampering over rocks and logs or diving 

 through tangles of underbrush at his approach, chipping de- 

 fiantly from a securely distant perch, or, as often as not, in- 

 vading his camp and examining his belongings. 



The chipmunks' large relative, the Douglas Squirrel, has been 

 immortalized by John Muir, and a reading of that gifted writ- 

 er's sympathetic portrayal of the squirrel and its surroundings 

 has doubtless familiarized the animal to many visitors to the 

 Sierras, indeed has probably caused many to make special 

 search for it when passing through its haunts. Also the Doug- 

 las squirrel is big enough and conspicuous enough, both vocal- 

 ly and otherwise, to fairly force itself upon the notice. With 

 the tiny chipmunks, however, it is different. 



California contains a host of these little animals, at least 

 eighteen species and subspecies of the tree chipmunks alone 

 (the genus Eutamias) , all very much alike to the casual view 

 — small, brownish-colored, and striped in the same general 

 pattern — so that the average mountain visitor desiring to know 

 more about them is apt to throw up his hands in despair at the 

 hopelessness of the attempt to distinguish one from the other. 



Without, however, making any attempt at the careful study 

 necessary to distinguish certain of the closely similar varieties, 



