Joseph Grinnell

“ Sometimes the animal rises still higher, supporting its whole body on its hind feet and using its stubby tail as a prop (C. L. Camp, MS) . The fact that the nose is continually twitched up and down, as if the animal were drawing in air, suggests that the sense of smell may be keen and that it may be used to determine the nature of a supposed enemy. If the observer continues his approach the squirrel suddenly deserts its "picket-pin" pose and dashes for its burrow, where it may hesitate a moment on all fours for one final look before diving out of sight. ”

“ These are thrown up by the floes of ice in the lakes which, decreasing in size as the summer advances, are driven back and forth across the lakes by changing winds, and thus crowd up the mud and sod around the edges. The dryer parts of the tundra are covered with the white reindeer moss, really a lichen, and under and among this a thick mat of sphagnum and other mosses. This is soaked full of water, and it is like walking over a bed of sponges, where one "sloshes" in five or six inches at every step, to travel over such ground. ”

“ The eldest of our company is rising fifty, the youngest twenty-one. The oldest has lived long enough to be convinced that gold is the key that unlocks all earthly treasures; his sole object is the key hidden somewhere in the pockets of the great Arctic. The youngest cares little for the gold, being more concerned about certain rare birds which may cross his devious path. The most of us have never met before, but are now an incorporated mining company, like hundreds of ship's crews this year. Each intends to do his share of work and to claim his portion of the profits, if profits come. ”

“ Unfortunately, we have never availed ourselves of an opportunity to dig out the burrow system of a Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel. We infer it to be simple and relatively short, for two reasons: the mounds at the mouths of the burrows are usually small in quantity of earth composing them; and the big roots, logs or rocks beneath which the burrows in practically all cases lead, would seem to do away with the need of an extensive and deeply penetrating system so as to secure safety from enemies which pursue their prey by digging. ”

“ Their feet are swollen and sore from standing in rubber boots in ice water, and their hands are cracked and chapped. These every-day monotonies are the real hardships of a miner's life. He can tramp across the country for a few weeks and know that the end of his journey is at hand, and besides be getting some satisfaction from the thought of "glory" when he shall relate his perils to gaping friends at home. But this "peg-away" daily toil, in heat and cold and sleet and rain, after what may come to light in the next shovelful, and possibly never show up at all—this is hardship. ”

“ Males and females are present in a general population in about equal numbers. Even though but one litter is reared by each female squirrel each year, this would mean that for each pair of squirrels at the beginning of the breeding season there will be ten individuals at the close of the breeding season. The evidence we have examined goes to show that all the squirrels breed the first year of their lives—that is, when each is not quite one year old—as well as subsequently, and that the life-time of a squirrel, if it dies of old age, is five years. ”

“ One individual was surprised eight feet above the ground in a tree yucca, where he had doubtless been prospecting among the ripe pods for the seeds. He ran down the yucca trunk head foremost, with clearly audible noise of claws on rough bark. Even in this position the tail was kept appressed to the rump and was flicked in fore-and-aft direction. This ability to climb is not exceptional among individuals of this species, and is quite consistent with the general agility of the animal. ”

“ B BUSTER CREEK, Cape Nome, Sept. 16, 1899.—A week ago Casey went to Anvil City, across country twelve miles, and brought a batch of mail, containing our first letters from home since our arrival here in answer to our own. I received six, which I have committed to memory, sitting alone in the cook tent. If people at home, the wide world over, would write faithfully to absent ones, there would be joy in many a wanderer's heart.
Here we are, working like beavers, thirteen of us, including me, the cook. It's the last struggle of a dying company. ”

“ The sure test, on the basis of behavior, of a ground squirrel as compared with any true tree squirrel, such as the California Gray, is that the former, no matter how high in a tree when discovered, will, upon alarm, take to the ground as quickly as possible, and seek safety in a burrow below ground, rather than make off through the branches from tree to tree, or ascend into the uppermost foliage of a treetop. ”

“ And there are the crunch and crackle of the dry snow under one's muckluks, emitting various modulations of sound, from the sharp bark of a dog to the squeak of a mouse. One has company even in solitude, and there can be no solitude in the world like this in the Arctics. ”

“ Everyone grows tiresome to his fellows on a trip like this; it could not be otherwise. Constant association for months brings out a man's faults and traits of character so plainly that those which are of little note glare like tiger's eyes in the dark, and his company becomes disagreeable, living as we do in a little cabin, and looking in each other's faces if we take a stroll, to keep watch for frost bites. ”

“ The irrigation and cultivation of extensive areas have resulted in a greatly increased available food supply which has proven acceptable to the ground squirrel and has resulted in greatly increasing its population. It is the authors' belief that the squirrels have been present in Owens Valley from time immemorial and that as long as they were few in numbers and stuck to the rocky, uncultivated ground they remained largely unnoticed, but that when they invaded irrigated fields and became numerous they attracted attention and were then thought to have but just moved into the valley. ”

“ The Antelope Ground Squirrels constitute a group distinct in many ways from all our other species. They are hardly less inhabitants of the ground, as compared with the tree squirrels and true chipmunks, but in manner they are more vivacious than any of the other ground squirrels; they run at a much faster clip and hence can forage at greater distances from safety refuges. Their coloration is distinctive, too, gray, with one white stripe along each side of the back, and with the under side of the tail brilliantly white. ”

“ I am only a bird-hunter by nature, and a gold-hunter on the Kowak by grace of my father, and am unable to depict the fortunes of this crowd in an acceptable manner. There is unrest everywhere. All admit that they have been duped. Some are making the best of circumstances, but others are taking it to heart in a pitiful degree. ”

“ The Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel is a spermophile in the truest sense of the word; it is preëminently a gatherer and eater of seeds, and most of its time aboveground seems to be occupied in diligent search for this sort of food. The cheek-pouches in this squirrel are developed to a maximum degree, and it is no uncommon thing to see an individual returning to its burrow from a foraging expedition with its two pouches so distended with seeds that the head seems double its ordinary width. We have counted 636 seeds from the two pouches of one squirrel. ”

“ Men pan out on a sand-bar of a river here and there and are discouraged at finding nothing. And moreover they will not do another stroke of work, but either return to the States, or camp somewhere waiting for "another man" to sink shafts and do what we know is real prospecting. I should not be surprised if three-fourths of the people on this river are idle, waiting for the others to dig. I know that our camp has done practically nothing, as may be seen from the reports which I have made, when I myself was supposed to be one of the prospectors. We are all equally guilty. ”

“ There is nothing to show that there has been any extension of the general range of the species, or any retraction in it either. As already set forth, the arrival of the white man and the institution of agriculture has undoubtedly had the effect locally of increasing the ground squirrel population. On the other hand, where man has been aroused by the seriousness of their depredations to the point of adopting and putting into force effective means of control the numbers of the squirrels have been conspicuously reduced. ”

“ And yet they seem so light on the wing and rise from the water with so little apparent exertion. Long-tailed jagers are common, coursing back and forth over the tundra or poising against the wind with fluttering wings much like a sparrow-hawk. ”