THE CALIFOEXIA GROUND SQUIRREL. 
15 
way have destroyed extensive fields of grain, and have burned 
fences and farm buildings. 
Deplorable destruction of birds has followed poisoning with both 
cyanide and phosphorus, and also with strychnine when used on 
wheat, oats, and Egyptian corn; but so- few birds will eat coated 
barley that scarcely half a dozen, all told, have been found dead after 
poisoning many thousands of acres with the starch-barley prepara- 
tion. 
The methods of poisoning herein recommended are not dangerous 
to stock, and may be safely employed on pasture lands, sheep ranges, 
and public highways, but should not be practiced in places accessible 
to poultry. 
The most disheartening feature of ground-squirrel poisoning is that 
lands which have been freed from squirrels are likely to be repopu- 
lated from adjacent lands which have not been poisoned. This 
is due to the extreme difficulty of arousing all the landowners of a 
neighborhood to unite in joint action in order to destroy all the 
squirrels. It is this lack of cooperation that keeps up the supply 
and levies an unjust tax on those ranchmen who periodically kill off 
the pests in their own fields and orchards. 
If the inhabitants of a district would unite in a cooperative cam- 
paign against the squirrels, or if the county supervisors or other au- 
thorized ofl&cials would undertake the task, including in their jurisdic- 
tion the public lands and highways, which are notorious sources of 
infestation, the animals could be exterminated over large areas, and 
the ranchmen and orchardists would enjoy a long period of immunity 
from squirrel depredations. 
O 
