About a score of chipmunks have their homes in my yard. They are
delightfully tame and will climb upon my head or shoulder, eat nuts
from my hand, or go into my pockets after them. At times three or four
make it lively for me. One day I stooped to give one some peanuts.
While he was standing erect and taking them from my fingers, a strange
dog appeared. At once all the chipmunks in the yard gave a chattering,
scolding alarm-cry and retreated to their holes. The one I was feeding
dashed up into my coat pocket. Standing up with fore paws on the edge
of the pocket, and with head thrust out, he gave the dog a tempestuous
scolding. This same chipmunk often played upon the back of Scotch, my
collie. Occasionally he stood erect on Scotch to sputter out an
alarm-cry and to look around when something aroused his suspicions.
Chipmunks are easily tamed and on short acquaintance will come to eat
from one's hand. Often they come into my cabin for food or for paper
to use for bedding. Occasionally one will sit erect upon my knee or
shoulder, sometimes looking off intently into the yard; at other times
apparently seeing nothing, but wrapped in meditation. More often,
however, they are storing peanuts in their pouches or deliberately
eating a kernel. Rarely is the presence of one agreeable to another,
and when four or five happen to call at the same time, they sometimes
forget their etiquette and I am the centre of a chipmunk scrimmage.
Once five callers came, each stringing in behind another. Just as the
fifth came in the door, there was a dispute among the others and one
started to retreat. Evidently he did not want to go, for he retreated
away from the open door. As number two started in pursuit of him,
number three gave chase to number two. After them started number four,
and the fifth one after all the others. The first one, being closely
pressed and not wanting to leave the room, ran round the centre table,
and in an instant all five were racing single file round the table.
After the first round they became excited and each one went his best.
The circle they were following was not large, and the floor was
smooth. Presently the rear legs of one skidded comically, then the
fore feet of another; and now and then one lost his footing and rolled
entirely over, then arose, looking surprised and foolish, but with a
leap entered the circle and was again at full speed.
[Illustration: ENTERTAINING A CHIPMUNK CALLER]
I enjoy having them about, and spend many a happy hour watching them
or playing with them. They often make a picnic-ground of my porch, and
now and then one lies down to rest upon one of the log seats, where,
outstretched, with head up and one fore paw extended leisurely upon
the log, he looks like a young lion.
Often they climb up and scamper over the roof of my cabin; but most of
their time on the roof is spent in dressing their fur or enjoying
long, warm sun baths. Frequently they mount the roof early in the
morning, even before sunrise. I am sometimes awakened at early dawn by
a chipmunk mob that is having a lively time upon the roof.
In many things they are persistent. Once I closed the hole that one
had made in a place where I did not want it. I filled the hole full of
earth. Inside of two hours it was reopened. Then I pounded it full of
gravel, but this was dug out. I drove a stake into the hole. A new
hole was promptly made alongside the stake. I poured this full of
water. Presently out came a wet and angry chipmunk. This daily
drowning out by water was continued for more than a week before the
chipmunk gave it up and opened a hole about thirty feet distant.
For eight years I kept track of a chipmunk by my cabin. She lived in a
long, crooked underground hole, or tunnel, which must have had a total
length of nearly one hundred feet. It extended in a semicircle and
could be entered at three or four places through holes that opened
upon the surface. Each of these entrance holes was partly concealed in
a clump of grass by a cluster of plants or a shrub.
I have many times examined the underground works of the chipmunk. Some
of these examinations were made by digging, and others I traced as
they were exposed in the making of large irrigation ditches. The earth
which is dug from these tunnels is ejected from one or more holes,
which are closed when the tunnel is completed. Around the entrance
holes there is nothing to indicate or to publish their presence; and
often they are well concealed.
These tunnels are from forty to one hundred feet long, run from two to
four feet beneath the surface, and have two or more entrances. Here
and there is a niche or pocket in the side of the tunnel. These niches
are from a few inches to a foot in diameter and in height. In one or
more of these the chipmunk sleeps, and in others is stored his winter
food-supply. He uses one of these pockets for a time as a
sleeping-place, then changes to another. This change may enable the
chipmunk to hold parasites in check. The fact that he has a number of
sleeping-places and also that in summer he frequently changes his
bedding, indicates that these efforts in sanitation are essential for
avoiding parasites and disease.
Commonly the bedding is grass, straw, and leaves; but in my yard the
chipmunks eagerly seize upon a piece of paper or a handkerchief. I am
compelled to keep my eyes open whenever they come into the cabin, for
they do not hesitate to seize upon unanswered letters or incomplete
manuscripts. In carrying off paper the chipmunk commonly tears off a
huge piece, crumples it into a wad, and, with this sticking from his
mouth, hurries away to his bedchamber. It is not uncommon to see half
a dozen at once in the yard, each going his own way with his clean
bed-linen.
Chipmunks take frequent dust and sun baths, but I have never seen one
bathe in water. They appear, however, to drink water freely. One will
sip water several times daily.
In the mountains near me the chipmunks spend from four to seven months
of each year underground. I am at an altitude of nine thousand feet.
Although during the winter they indulge in long periods of what may be
called hibernating sleep, they are awake a part of the time and
commonly lay in abundant stores for winter. In the underground
granaries of one I once found about a peck and a half of weed seeds.
Even during the summer the chipmunk occasionally does not come forth
for a day or two. On some of these occasions I have found that they
were in a heavy sleep in their beds.
These in my yard are fed so freely upon peanuts that they have come to
depend upon them for winter supplies. They prefer raw to roasted
peanuts. The chipmunk near my cabin sometimes becomes a little
particular and will occasionally reject peanuts that are handed to her
with the shell on. Commonly, however, she grabs the nut with both fore
paws, then, standing erect, rapidly bites away the shell until the nut
is reached. This she usually forces into her cheek pocket with both
hands. Her cheek pouches hold from twelve to twenty of these. As soon
as these are filled she hurries away to deposit her stores in her
underground granary. One day she managed to store twenty-two, and her
cheek pouches stood out abnormally! With this "swelled" and uncouth
head she hurried away to deposit the nuts in her storehouse, but when
she reached the hole her cheeks were so distended that she was unable
to enter. After trying again and again she began to enlarge the hole.
This she presently gave up. Then she rejected about one third of the
nuts, entered, and stored the remainder. In a few minutes she was back
for more. One day she made eleven round trips in fifty-seven minutes.
Early one autumn morning a coyote, in attempting to reach her, dug
into her granary and scattered the nuts about. After sending him off I
gathered up three quarts of shelled nuts and left about as many more
scattered through the earth! Over these the jays and magpies squabbled
all day.
One day a lady who was unsympathetic with chipmunks was startled by
one of the youngsters, who scrambled up her clothes and perched upon
her head. Greatly excited, she gave wild screams. The young chipmunk
was in turn frightened, and fled in haste. He took consolation with
his mother several yards away. She, standing erect, received him
literally with open arms. He stood erect with one arm upon her
shoulder, while she held one arm around him. They thus stood for some
seconds, he screeching a frightened cry, while she, with a subdued
muttering, endeavored to quiet him.
Once, my old chipmunk, seeing me across the yard, came bounding to me.
Forgetting, in her haste, to be vigilant, she ran into a family of
weasels, two old and five young ones, who were crossing the yard.
Instantly, and with lion-like ferocity, the largest weasel leaped and
seized the chipmunk by the throat. With a fiendish jerk of his head
the weasel landed the chipmunk across his shoulders and, still holding
it by the throat, he forced his way, half swimming, half floundering,
through a swift brook which crossed the yard. His entire family
followed him. Most savagely did he resent my interference when I
compelled him to drop the dead chipmunk.
The wise coyote has a peculiar habit each autumn of feasting upon
chipmunks. Commonly the chipmunks retire for the winter before the
earth is frozen, or before it is frozen deeply. Apparently they at
once sink into a hibernating sleep. Each autumn, shortly after the
chipmunks retire, the coyotes raid all localities in my neighborhood
in which digging is good. Scores of chipmunks are dug out and
devoured. Within a quarter of a mile of my cabin one October night
forty-two holes were dug. Another night fifty-four holes were dug near
by. In a number of these a few scattered drops of blood showed that
the coyote had made a capture. In one week within a few miles of my
cabin I found several hundred freshly dug holes. Many holes were dug
directly down to the granary where the stores were scattered about;
and others descended upon the pocket in which the chipmunk was asleep.
In a few places the digging followed along the tunnel for several
yards, and in others the coyote dug down into the earth and then
tunneled along the chipmunk's tunnel for several feet before reaching
the little sleeper.
So far as I know, each old chipmunk lives by itself. It is, I think,
rare for one to enter the underground works of another. Each appears
to have a small local range upon the surface, but this range is
occasionally invaded by a neighboring chipmunk. This invasion is
always resented, and often the invader is angrily ejected by the
local claimant of the territory.
In my locality the young are born during the first week in June. The
five years that I kept track of the mother chipmunk near my cabin, she
usually brought the youngsters out into the sunlight about the middle
of June. Three of these years there were five youngsters. One year the
number was four, and another year it was six. About the middle of July
the young were left to fight the battle of life alone. They were left
in possession of the underground house in which they were born, and
the mother went to another part of the yard, renovated another
underground home, and here laid up supplies for the winter.
A few days before the mother leaves the youngsters, they run about and
find most of their food. One year, a day or two before the one by my
cabin bade her children good-bye, she brought them--or, at any rate,
the children came with her--to the place where we often distributed
peanuts. The youngsters, much lighter in color, and less distinctly
marked than the mother, as well as much smaller, were amusingly shy,
and they made comic shows in trying to eat peanuts. They could not
break through the shell. If offered a shelled nut, they were as likely
to bite the end of your finger as the nut. They had not learned which
was which. With their baby teeth they could eat but little of the nut,
but they had the storing instinct and after a struggle managed to
thrust one or two of the nuts into their cheek pockets.
The youngsters, on being left to shift for themselves, linger about
their old home for a week or longer, then scatter, each apparently
going off to make an underground home for himself. The house may be
entirely new or it may be an old one renovated.
I do not know just when the mother returns to her old home. Possibly
the new home is closely connected with the one she has temporarily
left, and it may be that during the autumn or the early spring she
digs a short tunnel which unites them. The manner of this aside, I can
say that each summer the mother that I watched, on retiring from the
youngsters, carried supplies into a hole which she had not used
before, and the following spring the youngsters came forth from the
same hole, and presumably from the same quarters, that the children of
preceding years had used.
Chipmunks feed upon a variety of plants. The leaves, seeds, and roots
are eaten. During bloom time they feast upon wild flowers. Often they
make a dainty meal off the blossoms of the fringed blue gentian, the
mariposa lily, and the harebell. Commonly, in gathering flowers, the
chipmunk stands erect on hind feet, reaches up with one or both hands,
bends down the stalk, leisurely eats the blossoms, and then pulls down
another. The big chipmunk, however, has some gross food habits. I have
seen him eating mice, and he often catches grasshoppers and flies. It
is possible that he may rob birds' nests, but this is not common and I
have never seen him do so. However, the bluebirds, robins, and
red-winged blackbirds near me resent his close approach. A chipmunk
which has unwittingly climbed into a tree or traveled into a territory
close to the nest of one of these birds receives a beating from the
wings of the birds and many stabs from their bills before he can
retreat to a peaceful zone. Many times I have seen birds battering
him, sometimes repeatedly knocking him heels over head, while he,
frightened and chattering, was doing his best to escape.
There are five species of chipmunks in Colorado. Two of these are near
me,--the big chipmunk and the busy chipmunk. The latter is much
smaller, shyer, and more lively than the former and spends a part of
its time in the treetops; while the big, although it sometimes climbs,
commonly keeps close to the earth.
Among their numerous enemies are coyotes, wild-cats, mountain lions,
bears, hawks, and owls. They appear to live from six to twelve years.
The one near my place I watched for eight years. She probably was one
or more years of age when I first saw her.
Almost every day in summer a number of children come, some of them for
miles, to watch and to feed my chipmunks. The children enjoy this as
keenly as I have ever seen them enjoy anything. Surely the kindly
sympathies which are thus aroused in the children, and the delightful
lesson in natural history which they get, will give a helpful
educational stimulus, and may be the beginning of a sympathetic
interest in every living thing.