The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1905-09-16
ARE cANNIBAl.S
And Are Cowardly, Besides, Says O
Man Who Had Forty
in a Cage. ia

NF
AS far back as l can remember r
have been interested in chipmunkS.
watching them for hours at a time as
they frisked along the fences, sour
ried up a tree or sat upon fence posts
and swore in the chlpmunk vernacu-
lar, says a New York man to the Sun.
And SO n summer, having a little
leisure time, | set to work to watch
these frolicsome little chaps. / was
the owner of a big cage built for gray
squirrels. 1t was four feet high, five
feet long and two feet wide and it
contained 16 wire nests. There was
plenty of room in 1t for several good
sized families.
With the help of a figure four trap
40 chipmunks were caught and Gagged
| built partitions in the cage and di-
vided it into three stories. The chip
hunks were from different localities.
Some were caught in the woods; some
in .neighboring fields on the slopes of
the mountains, and the others in half
a dozen other places. In the cage were
citizens of a dozen different colonies.
When a new arrival was put in the
cage he would be inspected by the
others and accepted as a relation, or
rejected a. a stranger. For these little
creatures had their w way of finding
out whether the newcomer belonged
to their family or was an enemy and
a citizen of a strange nation.
M nninn-A1 -,nI@@~nAH
members of the same colony as them
selves and took them to their houses,
on the first, second or third floors.
and made them at home. Should Ii
happen, as it did frequently, that none
of the imprisoned chipmunks recog-
nized the ewcome there were days
of ostracism, in which he was left Sc
verely alone, but it ended finally in his
adoption by some OF them. Like all
newly converted followers Of strange
banners, he at once set out to prove
to his new friends that he was CRATE
full, and he showed it by pitching into
any strange chipmunk whom he caught
approaching the home nest.
In a few days the 40 chipmunks had
divided into groups, colonies Or fami-
lies. In each of the 16 nests was the
beginning of a nation. In the daytime
they would run all over the cage, but
at night it was as much as a strange
chipmunk'S life was worth for him to
visit a nest where he did not belong.
In case he did forget himself the chip
hunks who inhabited hat part of the
chipmunk world would set upon him
and make the fur fly.
One night l heard a sharp squeak. /
got up, looked in the cage and, some
what to my surprise, found a dead
chipmunk. Then l began to watch the
cage at night. | saw a chipmunk stick
his head out of his nest, look below
and, perceiving, as he thought, every
thing clear, descend 10 make a coward
ly attack on a chipmunk IN one of the
nests on the ground floor. There was
a squeak, and the assassin shot back
into his nest.
The chipmunks were at var with
each other and proved themselves a lot
of towards. They would make these
attacks by sneaking up in the rear, or
invading nests when they thought
their enemies asleep and infiicting one
deadly bite in the back of the head.
But this was not all, for when they
had killed their enemy they considered
it a special duty they owed to chip
munk civilization to get rid of the re-
mains, which they did by %devouring
the body to the last shred of flesh,
leaving only the skin.
When l made this discovery 1 col
cluded I had about enough of chip
hunks. And SO III day l took the cage
out into the woods and turned what
was left of my colonies loose. They
were cowardly sneaks and cannibals.
Their innocent frolicSome ways COW
cred a multitude of sins. On the bot
tom of the cage l counted 40 less than
IA skulls and about as many hides.