54 SPERMOPHILES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



larly fond of the leaves of the common mustard, of which sonic plants 

 grew near their burrows. Other specimens examined in summer had 

 their stomachs filled with grass alone. In eating they sat upright on 

 the tarsi and used their fore feet as hands to draw the leaves to their 

 mouths, though their paws were used thus with less facility than those 

 of the true squirrels. Though both the vegetable and flower garden 

 were situated within 5 rods of their burrows I do not remember that 

 they were observed to injure either. A number of young chickens dis- 

 appearing, however, and the eggs being eaten in several hens' nests 

 near the burrows of the spermophiles, suspicion rested upon them — 

 probably unjustly — and a war of extermination was commenced. Sev- 

 eral were shot, while others were killed with clubs, whereupon the sur- 

 vivors left in a body as suddenly as they had come and were never 

 seen again, nor could they be found upon any part of the farm. I have 

 known this spermophile to take refuge in a hollow tree, crowding up 

 the hole like a gray rabbit. Mr. P. O. Sherman, of Chicago, informs 

 me that he twice saw one, when pursued, climb 5 or 6 feet up the trel- 

 lis work and vines at the side of a house. 



"The burrow of this species is usually deeper than that of the Striped 

 Spermophile, but otherwise similar to it. The young I have not observed, 

 but Mr. George S. Parker, of Pecatonica, 111., writes me that he once 

 saw five and at another time seven young in a nest. They appear to 

 go into winter quarters in the fall and reappear in the spring at about 

 the same time as the Striped Spermophile. They have been found 

 hibernating under piles of rails and in corn shocks, and I am informed 

 of two instances in which one has been found torpid in a haystack* 

 where he had formed a burrow in the hay. I have never heard of its 

 hibernating in such situations. A caged specimen of Franklin's Sper- 

 mophile, kept by Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, was active 

 all winter; and Dr. A. M. D. Hughes, of Payson, 111., informs me that 

 he found one in a burrow under a corn shock, active in mild weather 

 late in November. 



"This species is carnivorous, though apparently less so than the 

 Striped Spermophile. A specimen* kept by Prof. Baird was decidedly 

 carnivorous, but one observed by Dr. Hoy did not eat mice, though it 

 killed them when placed in the cage. Its food is generally similar to 

 that of the Striped Spermophile, stores being also found in its burrow. 

 It gnaws hard substances more than the Striped Spermophile, and, 

 while the latter will not gnaw out of a box, this readily does so. Caged 

 specimens cut open hazelnuts also. 



" This squirrel injures the farmer by taking up newly planted corn, as 

 does the Striped Spermophile. Being far less abundant than the other, 

 however, it is usually less complained of on newly broken land; but it 

 is sometimes the more injurious of the two on old farms, where it bur- 

 row. s in cultivated fields more willingly than the other. It frequently 

 burrows during summer in grain fields, where it eats the green plants, 



