1915.] 



INTKODUCTION. 



13 



by consuming the forage and by trampling down much that they 

 do not eat. Cultivated crops and orchard trees are occasionally 

 injured by them, but the damage usually is not serious. Evermann 

 I and Clark state that in Indiana woodchucks — 



* * * sometimes damage young corn plants and occasionally feed on the leaves 

 of pumpkin, squash, and bean vines. They sometimes visit the kitchen garden 

 and do more or less damage to the cabbage heads and celery. ^ 



Brooks, writing of the woodchuck in West Virginia, says : 



^ ¥: ^ Feeds on com in the roasting-ear, which it procures by breaking down the 

 stalks; is also fond of pumpkins, young beans, grass and other cultivated crops. Fre- 

 quently gnaws and scratches the bark of young fruit trees. ^ 



Hahn mentions capturing a woodchuck in a sassafras tree and 

 finding its stomach gorged with sassafras leaves.^ Dr. Witmer Stone 

 states that the woodchuck sometimes eats cantaloupes. 



The food of yellow-footed marmots is similar to that of eastern 

 woodchucks, but probably includes a larger proportion of wild plants 

 and less grass and clover. Vernon Bailey found in the stomachs of 

 the Black HiUs marmot flowers, leaves, and green seeds of various 

 plants, including Astragalus hisulcatus and Sedum donglasii. In dry 

 excrement of marmots at Spokane Bridge, Wash., he found the seeds 

 of Amelanchier alnifolia and Rubus nutkanus. Birdseye states that 

 the marmots in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana, feed on timothy, 

 clover, alfalfa, dandehons, and other native plants. He says: 



In hayfields they consume a very considerable amount of feed; and beans, carrots, 

 potato vines, cabbage, and other garden truck are almost sure to suffer whenever 

 woodchucks have access to them.* 



Little is known definitely concerning the food habits of hoary 

 marmots, but they doubtless feed, like the other species, on grass 

 and the tender leaves and stems of native plants. 



ECONOMIC STATUS. 



As already shown, the food habits of the American marmots 

 make the animals a decided pest wherever they occur about culti- 

 vated lands. In this respect the woodchucks of the Eastern 

 States are the chief offenders, and the farmers of that region wage 

 constant warfare on the animals, with indifferent success. Where 

 the woodchucks occupy mowing lands they not only consume con- 

 siderable grass and tread down much more which can not be cut by 

 a mowing machine, but their burrows and mounds make it difficult 

 and dangerous to operate a mower. Horses sometimes are injured 

 by stepping into the holes made by woodchucks, and the knives of 



1 Evermann & Clark. Proc. Washington Acad. Sci., XVII, 1911, p. 13. 



2 Brooks, F. E. Report W. Va. Board Agr. for 1910 (1911), p. 15. 



3 Halm, W. L. Maram. of Indiana, 1909, p. 482. 



* Birdseye, Clarence. Farmers' Bui. 484, U. S. Dept. Agr., 1912, p. 28. 



