STRIPED SPERMOPHILE. 



39 



FOOD. 



The name Spermophilus, meaning seed-lover, is particularly appro- 

 priate for this species. Scarcely a seed or grain grows where they 

 live that they do not eat. The following list includes only such as 1 

 have seen them in the act of eating or have found in their cheek 

 pouches or stomachs: Wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn, acorns, hazelnuts, 

 seeds of mountain rice (Oryzopsis micrantha), feather grass (Stipa spar- 

 tea), pigeon grass (Setaria), millet (Setaria italica), wild sunflowers 

 (Relianthus), pigweed (Chenopodium), bindweed and knotweed (Poly- 

 gonum), puccoon (Lithospermum), three species of prickly pear (Opuntia 

 missouriensis, O.fragilis, and 0. rafinesqui), ragweed (Ambrosia), buf- 

 falo peas (Astragalus caryocarpus), Hosackia purshiana, and common 

 locust (Robinia pseudacaeia). But their food is by no means restricted 

 to seeds, for they are fond of various fruits, roots, insects, lizards, 

 mice, and any kind of fresh meat. They eat the fruit of the prickly 

 pear (Opuntia rafinesqui), strawberries, green foliage of numerous 

 plants, roots of sorrel (Oxalis violacea), and wild larkspur (Delphinium 

 azureum). 



Animal food forms a part of their diet and they feed especially upon 

 such insects as grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, and ants. They 

 seem to like any kind of fresh meat and have troubled me a great deal 

 by eating small mammals caught for specimens. In traps set with 

 much care for various kinds of mice (Sitomys, Perognathus, or Arvicola), 

 I have frequently found only the strips of skin with feet and tail at- 

 tached to show where a rare specimen had disappeared; and on open- 

 ing the stomach of the spermophile caught near the place have found 

 in its stomach the flesh of the lost specimens. Moreover, they are true 

 cannibals, devouring the dead bodies of their own species. They tear 

 the skin in strips and eat out the flesh. Mice are usually eaten bones 

 and all, and frequently nothing but bits of torn skin and the feet and 

 tail are left. I once shot a sperinophile as it was sitting up eating 

 something that it held in its paws. On picking it up a partly devoured 

 lizard (Eumeces fasciatus) was found, and several joints of the lizard's 

 tail were in the sperinophile's cheek pouches. Prof. F. E. L. Beal in- 

 forms me that at Ames, Story County, Iowa, he once saw a Striped 

 Spermophile with a large hairy caterpillar in its mouth, and on another 

 occasion saw one carrying a field mouse. 



Prof. Herbert Osborn, of Ames, Iowa, contributes the following 

 interesting account of their food habits: " Early in June I noticed the 

 Striped Ground Squirrels on the college lawn digging into the turf 

 and eating something which they withdrew. Examining the places 

 thus dug up I always found the peculiar cocoon of a Crambus, and the 

 place would also show the deserted web and burrow of the larva. 

 These squirrels' burrows were very numerous in some parts of the lawn ; 

 and in one place I counted twenty-five in the space of a square yard, 



