The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-22

them. No house rats are natives 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 eoun. try. but not one Of them lives in houses They do not seek the neighborhood of man. as do the foreign species. which may be regarded as human parasites"
 The speaker was Dr. c. Hart Mer- riem. the weli-known naturalist. He added Our wild rats live in the woods and deserts. They differ In their habits according to the regions in which they reside. Commonly they build over their nests great piles of rubbish for q protection against predatory animals Sometimes 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 sapling or placed between two trees, Skunks, badgers and eos votes have hard work to dig through such chevaux-de-frise.
 ''rhe desert species often build their nests among rocks. or they will pile over them thorny yucca leaves. cacti and other spiny 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 accumula- ton of dead branches of thorny shrubs and cactus needles. These cactus nee dies are so sharp. and the punctures made by them are so painful, that one cannot enter such cave on hands and knees without spreading a piece of can vas or other cloth prelminarily. It may be imagined what an excellent protection they afford against preda- cious mammals.
 | "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 l of the animal being as great as that of the largest wharf rat. It Is the nearest surviving relative of fossil rat that inhabited caves in America perhaps 100000 years ago. The species multiply as you go southward. In the north as far as Hudson Bay you find the bushy tailed rats, which have tails like squir- rels, They are known as pack rats because they steal, or pack off with everything they can get hold of
 l "One reads a great many stories H. frustrating the intelligence of rats; but, l from all accounts, these pack rats would l seem to be the most clever of their | tribe. Trappers and campers-out in that part of the country tell innumera l ble stories about them. They will steal knives, forks, spoons-anything, in fact, that is bright and portable-carrying the stolen articles to their nests to play with. It is alleged that they always put something a bit of wood or what not-in the place of the thing carried l off. I have listened by the hour to tales recounted by woodsmen of the deviltry of these animals-yarns which would seem to indicate that the four-footed thieves have d sense of humor, though so lacking in conscience.
 ''That they are conscientious about leaving something in payment for what they take. however may be judged from one story which happen to recall. 1 A hunter. who told the yarn to me in 1 evident good faith. had gone to sleep for the night, leaving his knife stuck in a log. His dreams were disturbed by noises which he could not account for. Finally. by the fitful light of the camp | fire, he saw a couple of rats sitting upon the log in which his knife had been left. The knife was gone, and the rats were 1 trying to put a piece of stick about foot long in its place. They were mak- ing an effort to get the stick to stand up in the crack, but, not having the skill to insert it properly, it fell repeat edly, making the odd sound which had puzzled the owner of the knife.
 l Pack rats sometimes come into l houses on the frontiers. The wild rats of the woods and deserts do very little damage to agriculture; they live in re- l gions where there is not much in the way of crops to devour. In the deserts they live on the seeds of desert plants. such as the screW-ban. Death Valley is full of rats We found a new species l there that climb the yucca tree. It is probably the only mammal that is able to accomplish this feat. The trunk of the yucca tree is clad in an armor of spines which project downward But the rat literally gnaWs its way up the tree, making 8 spiral ladder as it goes. In the deserts the so-called kangaroo rats are plentiful, but they are not real rats
 Our native rats belong to different group among mammals from that which embraces the European rats. The black rats were the first to come to this country from abroad. They have been driven out by the gray wharf rats, so that one sees them comparatively seldom nowadays. They are still found in parts of New England and exten- sively in the southern states. The roof rats of Europe so closely resemble the black rats that some naturaiists believe them to be the same species They ex- ist in some portions of the eastern Uni ted States. occupying the roofs a spec ial predilection. For matched roofs they have the world and belong in the neigh borhood of Manzanilfo. a portion of western Mexico. They are reddish in color and attain 2 length of twenty inches"