THE CALIFORNIA GROUND SQUIRREL. 
5 
food and where obtainable are gathered and stored in large quantities. 
The same is true of manroot (EcJiinocystis fahacea) , the seeds of which 
are eagerly eaten, according to Piper, from the time they begin to 
form until fully ripe. At Modesto the squirrels were eating them as 
early as the middle of May and as late as the middle of December. 
Other favorite seeds are those of elderberry (Sambucus), jimson weed 
(Datura), wild nightshade (Solanum) , turkey mullein (Eremocarpus) , 
tarweed ( Madia) , and numerous grasses. Of cultivated nuts, almonds 
and walnuts are preferred; of other crops, apples, prunes, peaches, 
apricots, figs, olives, certain garden vegetables, the seeds of cante- 
loupes, watermelons, and citron melons, and all the grains are eaten 
wherever they are to be had, and green alfalfa and clover are some- 
times taken. In November — sometimes earlier, according to the 
date on which the early rains begin — tender green vegetation becomes 
abundant, and the ground squirrels turn their attention to it. At 
this season their chief food consists of green stuff, mainly young wild 
oats and filaree, the latter a small member of the geranium family 
widely distributed in California and valued as a forage plant. In 
several localities in March the cheek pouches of animals examined by 
Piper were filled with the yet green seeds of filaree. In June the 
pouches are often filled with alfalfa leaves and flowers. In southern 
California the squirrels are fond of the fruit of the prickly pear 
(Opuntia). 
STORING FOOD. 
Ground squirrels carry, in their ample cheek pouches, acorns, olives, 
various seeds and grain, and even green stuff, from the places where 
they are gathered to their burrows, where the acorns and seeds are 
stored for future use. At Modesto in May, 1909, Piper found stores 
of alfilaria seeds packed in cavities and well mixed with dry sand. In 
December of the same year he examined a number of stores of grain 
unearthed by a farmer while scraping and leveling his land. Each 
of these caches consisted of from a pint to a quart of oats stored in 
cavities and packed in dry sand. They varied from 8 to 18 inches in 
depth beneath the surface; some were in short blind holes; others at 
the ends of branches of the main burrow. 
DEPREDATIONS. 
It is easily seen that an animal so large, so abundant, and so gener- 
ally distibuted over the agricultural parts of the State is capable of 
inflicting serious losses; and when it is remembered that the ground 
squirrel feeds on walnuts, almonds, apricots, peaches, pniiies, apples, 
olives, figs, oranges, certain vegetable and forage crops, and all the 
grains, and also damages vineyards and young orange groves, the 
magnitude of its depredations, amounting to hundreds of thousands 
