TAM I AS STRIATUS. 
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confinement, and altogether too fond of biting his captor’s fingers 
on insufficient provocation. It is proper to state, however, that 
the very young have not, to my knowledge, been caged, and I in- 
cline to the belief that they would well repay one for the care be- 
stowed upon them. 
In the American Naturalist {ox March, 1870 (p. 58), Mr. A. J. 
Cook, of Lansing, Michigan, states that a Chipmunk was observed 
“ busily nibbling at a snake that had been recently killed. He 
could hardly be driven away, and soon returned to his feast when 
his tormentors had withdrawn a short distance.” 
Thomas Pennant says of this species : “ During the mayz harvest, 
these squirrels are very busy in biting off the ears, and filling their 
mouths so full with the corn that their cheeks are quite distended. 
It is observable, that they give great preference to certain food ; 
for if, after filling their mouths with rye, they happen to meet with 
wheat, they fling away the first, that they may indulge in the 
last.” * 
John Josselyn, writing in 1675 of the animals of New England, 
called the Chipmunk “ mouse-squirril ”, and said of it : “ The 
mouse-squirril is hardly so big as a Rat, streak’d on both sides 
with black and red streaks, they are mischievous vermine destroying 
abundance of Corn both in the field and in the house, where they 
will omaw holes into Chests, and tear clothes both linnen and 
wollen, and are notable nut-gathers in August; when hasel and 
filbert nuts are ripe you may see upon every Nut-tree as many 
mouse-squirrils as leaves ; So that the nuts are gone in a trice, 
which they convey to their Drays or Nests.” f 
* Synopsis of Quadrupeds. 1771, p. 289. 
•|> Two Voyages to New England. Boston reprint, p. 69. 
