640 



THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



while at 8,500 feet on Mount Pinos, Ventura County, a similar sized 

 young one was taken July 11, 1904. At the former locality three juve- 

 niles and an adult female were drowned out of one community burrow in 

 an almond orchard. This is probably about the minimum number in a 

 litter, as the average number of young in a litter appears to be only 

 slightly less than in the California Ground Squirrel. "The average 

 number ... of young at a birth . . . along the borders of the Mohave 

 Desert appears to be . . . 6 or 7" (C. H. Merriam, 1910, p. 4). At 

 Schain's Ranch, San Jacinto Mountains, on June 18, 1908, a family of 

 eight young ground squirrels was observed aboveground at one time 

 at the mouth of a burrow (W. P. Taylor, MS). 



Regarding food preferences of this sub-species a special feature has 

 been noted with extraordinary frequency, as follows. Many Fisher 

 Ground Squirrels are taken in meat-baited steel traps set for predatory 

 carnivores under circumstances which make it seem certain that they 

 were caught while trying to steal the bait. They have also been known 

 to eat woodrats and even other individuals of their own kind which 

 they have found dead in traps. 



At Kelso Pass, Kern County, on July 8, 1911, two Fisher Ground 

 Squirrels came to drink at a seepage from a spring. One drank six 

 times, the fifth time for over two minutes, by count of seconds (J. 

 Grinnell, MS). 



The following records of cheek-pouch contents establish some of the 

 sorts of food taken by this animal. At Taylor Meadow, Tulare County, 

 a squirrel was taken on July 25, 1911, with 88 seeds of a lupine 

 (Lupinus grayi) in its cheek-pouches. Another squirrel taken seven 

 miles above Kernville, Kern County, on June 26, 1911, was carrying 

 a seed of the Digger Pine (Pinus sabmiana) ; while a third squirrel 

 taken at Lone Pine, Inyo County, had gathered and placed in its cheek 

 pouches 118 seeds of Encelia frutescens and 5 seeds of Hymenoclea 

 salsola. 



Squirrels of this subspecies were found doing a large amount of dam- 

 age to the almond crop at Cabezon, Riverside County, on May 16, 1908. 

 Here they were living right in the almond orchard, most of the inhabited 

 burrows being dug close to the roots of the trees. Other short, shallow 

 burrows were noted, but these were thought to be of use only for tem- 

 porary protection in case the animals were taken by surprise (C. H. 

 Richardson, MS). 



In Antelope Valley, near Fairmont, Los Angeles County, on June 22, 

 1904, the authors found ground squirrels doing enormous damage to 

 almonds, climbing the trees and biting open the green fruit to take out 

 the pit and often leaving the hull in place on the tree. The pit was 

 frequently found to have been removed from a remarkably small hole 

 in the side or end of the shell. 



At various points within the range of fisheri we have been told by old 

 residents that digger squirrels have only recently invaded the locality 

 and that a few years ago there were none where many squirrels are now 

 present. In many such cases the sudden increase in the number of 

 ground squirrels is evidently due not to invasion from without, but to 

 the breeding up, under favorable conditions, of the local stock of squir- 

 rels which have been present all the time, but which was formerly so 



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