4 
THE CALIFORNIA GROUND SQUIRREL. 
not eaten on the spot are tucked away in the cheek pouches and car- 
ried to underground storehouses for future use. 
Wliile hving mainly on the ground the squirrels are good climbei'S, 
and are often seen in oaks and other nut-bearing trees and also in 
fruit trees and tobacco trees. 
They are not migrants in the proper sense of the word, their jour- 
neys being limited to short distances, as from one locality to a neigh- 
boring one, according to the season and fluctuations in the food sup- 
ply. Thus at Banning, in San Gorgonio Pass, S. E. Piper, of the 
Biological Sursw, found that after the young were large enough to 
travel many of the squirrels abandoned the grain fields and moved 
down to the orchards, where they remained during the dry season, to 
return to the grain fields in winter or early spring. The cultivation 
of grain or other crops usually draws them from adjoining lands, so 
that they become more abundant on cultivated lands than elsewhere. 
This species does not hibernate, except in the mountains, although 
in the foothills and valleys the animals usualh' sta}' in their burrows 
during stormy and severe weather. At the upper limit of their range, 
where the ground in winter is covered with snow, they may remain 
underground long enough to be said to liibernate, but over the greater 
part of the State they are out in numbers every month of the year. 
In the oak foothills, when the acorns are ripening in September and 
October, these squirrels become fat and lazy, and many may be seen 
about the mouths of their burrows enjoying the sunshine. 
BREEDING. 
The time of breeding varies somewhat with the localit}^, animals 
living in the north, in the mountains, and along the coast breeding 
later than those in the hot countr}'." The young are usually born in 
March or early April. Pregnant females have been killed at various 
dates from February 15 to May 12, and in the warm countr}^ young 
old enough to run about are usually -common in April. Now and 
then small young are seen as late as the middle or latter part of 
August, indicating that they were bom in late June or early July, 
^liether or not these are cases of a second litter is not known. The 
number of 3"oung at a birth varies from 5 to 11 . The average number 
over the greater part of the State is 8, but along the borders of the 
Mohave Desert it appears to be reduced to 6 or 7. 
FOOD. 
The food consists, according to season and locality, of acorns, fruits, 
seeds of various plants, and green herbage. Acorns are a favorite 
a Thus in the spring of 1910, S. E. Piper reported that at Bakersfield, in the southern 
part of the San Joaquin Valley, the breeding season was two or three weeks earlier than 
at Modesto, in the northern part of the same valley; and at Hollister, in San Benito 
County, it was two weeks later than at Modesto. 
