Page:Natural History of the Ground Squirrels of California.djvu/105

Rh In July, 1905, we found the Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels especially numerous around Bluff Lake, altitude 7,500 feet. Here they were to be seen all over the floor of the pine and fir woods, foraging among the chinquapin and deer-brush thickets. None was ever seen to climb a tree, though individuals were often seen perched motionless on stumps, logs or boulders. No matter where encountered, they always sought safety in holes in the ground or in crevices among rocks. They were notably quiet animals, giving only occasionally a single sharp note of alarm, or else, rarely, a low chuckle.



Around Bear Lake the Yellowheads were common through the woods down to the water's edge. On the north slopes of Sugarloaf, on August 22, they were very busy gathering cheek-pouchfuls of seeds of a lupine, and the fruits of the deer-brush (Ceanothus cordulatus) and of a recldish-fruited currant (Ribes sp.). Elsewhere they were seen carrying to their burrows quantities of the green burrs of the chinquapin (Castanopsis sempervirens). The burrows usually opened out under logs, rotten stumps, or boulders. There was seldom any mound of earth to mark an entrance.

A female squirrel captured at Dry Lake, 9,000 feet altitude, on June 22, was found to contain four embryos. The young must have