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.