The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-19
RATS ARE NOT NATIVE.
They All Immigrated to This Country
in the Early Days.
Ero,,, tba yHyosh f,,r.a,, Co..
ON the Washington Star.

From the Washington Star.
when the first houses were built in
America there were no rats to inhabit
them. No house rates are native to this
continent. All of the rodents which in
fest our dwellings are assisted immi-
grants, fetched over from Europe in
ships. We have about twenty species of
rats that are indigenous to this country,
but not one of them lives in houses They
do not seek the neighhorhood of man, as
do the foreign species, which may be re-
garded as human parasites"
The speaker was DR.. G. Hart Merriam,
the well-knuwn naturalist. He added :
Our wild rats live in the woods and
deserts. They differ in their habits ac-
cordlng TO the regions in which they re-
side. Commonly they build over their
nests great piles of rubbish for protec-
tion against predatory animals Some
times they gather heaps of stones for this
purpose. The brown-footed wood rats
OF California erect stacks of brush and
sticks, which are sometimes as much as
six feet high. Occasionally these stacks
are put up in trees, but usually they are
on the ground, leaning against a sapliug
or placed between two trees. Skunks,
badgers and coyotes have hard work to
dig through such chevaux-de-fr ise.
The desert species. often build their
nests among rocks, or they will pile over
them thorny yucca leaves, cactuses and
other spiney things. Many of them live
in caves in the faces of cliffs. Wherever
there are caves in the west you will find
rats. The floor of the cave is covered
ordinarily with an accumulation Of dead
| branches of thorny shrubs and cactus
needles. These cactus needles are so
sharp, and the punctures made by them
are 50 painful, that one cannot enter such
a cave on hands and knees without
spreading piece of canvas or other cloth
preliminary. 1t may be imagined what
an excellent protection they afford against
predacious mammals.
The cactus needles are found by mil
lions, the collection very likely represent
ing an accumulation of centuries The
rats live in crevices Of the rocks within
the caves. Their excrement forms a sort
Of resinous guano which solidides in
masses. 1t is a substance of very curious
appearance; in hot exposures il some
times trickles out like melted rosin.
OFTEN the deposit of IL will be three or
four feet deep, mixed throughout with
cactus spines and rat hair. For o long
time nobody could guess what il was but
its nature was determined by Henry w
Henshaw, naturalist, who is now at
tached to the bureau Of ethnology.
TAILS LIKE SQUIRRELS.
"These native wild rats range clear
across the United States westward from
Pennsylvania, in which state one species
is found. This species is the biggest in
the United States. the size Of the animal
being as large as that OF the lar gest
wharf rat. II is the nearest surviving
relative Of a fossil rat that inhabited
caves in America perhaps 100000 years
ago. The species multiply as you 20
southwark. IN the north, as far as Hud-
son bay, you find the bushy-tailed rats.
which have tails like squirrels. They
are known as pack rats, be-
cause they steal or pack OF with