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Modified 30-Apr-20
Created 12-Jul-15
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John Muir, in "The Mountains of California", has a whole chapter on these creatures. Here are some excerpts: "A King's River Indian told me that they call him 'Pillillooeet,' which, rapidly pronounced with the first syllable accented, is not unlike the lusty exclamation he utters on his way up a tree when excited."
"Go where you will throughout the noble woods of the Sierra Nevada, among the giant pines and spruces of the lower zones, up through the towering Silver Firs to the storm-bent thickets of the summit peaks, you everywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence. Though only a few inches long, so intense is his fierce vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important than even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch feels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is stimulated by this means is not easy to learn, but his action in manipulating their seed is more appreciable. Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws. Probably over fifty per cent of all the cones ripened on the Sierra are cut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees perhaps ninety per cent pass through his hands..."
Check out John Muir's tale of the concert he whistled and sang for the Douglas squirrel as well as other squirrels, chipmunks, and birds. They liked "Bonny Doon" and many more tunes, listening for a half hour. But they scattered disdainfully when JM started on the hymn "Old Hundredth". JM later tested this with ground squirrels in the Coast Range: same result.