Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-11

some secluded corner against another
day
Beckmann gives a delightful account
Of raccoon which used to amuse itself
by washing various odds and ends In
bucket Of water. An old pot handle,
a snail shell or anything of the sort
would do, but what he loved best OF all
was an empty bottle. Clasping It In his
forepaws he would waddle slowly to
the bucket, with the bottle clasped
close to his breast, and then roll It
and pinse 1t IN the water. II any one
ventured to disturb him he was furi-
Gus and threw himself upon his back,
clinging SO tightly to his beloved bottle
that he could be lifted by it
Groos says that bears will do the
same sort Of thing. He relates the case
of a polar bear which used to roll an
old iron pot to and fro In his tank, and
then, lifting II 1ut, rub It up and down
In a trough OF running water. He stood
on his hind legs and used his forepaws
exactly like a washerwoman washing
clothes.
Certainly the bear looked upon the
kettle as a toy and the washing a game
There could have been no other pos
sible object In his queer performance.
The Honest Trade Rat
One Of the oldest little animals in ex-
istence is the California wood rat bet
ter known as the trade rat 1t owes
the latter name to the fact that though
1t is a great thief, It never steals any
thing without putting something else
i'm its place. Rather more than q year
ago a photograph appeared among the
Strand curiosities Of paste pot which.
had been left over night in the assay
office of the silver queen mine and
which was found in the morning filled
with the oldest collection of rubbish.
This was the work of trade rats. They
had stolen the paste and left In ex-
change q piece of stick. a length of
rope, some odds and ends of wire and
an unbroken glass funnel
The object of the trade rat in so
scrupulousy paying for what he takes
is n mystery. But these same rats GER
tainly take the greatest pleasure in the
odds and ends which they steal and col
lect. In Lindsay's Mind in Lower Ami
mails" a description is given of trade
rats nest found in an unoccupied house.
The outside was composed entirely of
iron spikes laid in perfect symmetry,
with the points outward. Interlaced
with the spikes were about two dozen
forks and spoonks and three large
butcher knives. There were also large
carving fork, knife and Steel several
plugs Of tobacco, an old purse, guam
tity of small carpenter tools, including
several augers, and a watch, Of which
the outside casing, the glass and the
works were all distributed separately,
so as to make the best show possible
altogether the oldest collection. None
of these things was of any earthly use
to the rats. They must have collected
them just in the same way that a
child boards up odds and ends to play
with
The trade rat has it's South Ameri-
can counterpart in the Viscacha, a
pretty little relation of the chinchilla,
which lives in families of twenty or.
thirty on the pampas. Everything that
takes it fancy and Is portable is carried
by the viscacha and piled in neat little
heaps at the mouth of its burrow. If a
ranchman drops his watch or any SINH
lar article he always searches the Wis
cacha burrows in the neighborhood and
generally finds his lost property.
Feathered Thieves
But one need not go far as the New
World to find instances of creatures
that hoard. Most of the crow family
have this trick. Every one knows the
delight which these birds take in any
shining object, and how cleverly they
will steal it and hide 1t away.
A we'll known naturalist speaks Of
wild crow which made a collection of
bits of broken china and similar odds
and ends and hid them in a nettle
patch. One day the naturalist STUN
bled on the bird standing in the middle
of his treasures and arranging them.
Next day they were all gone. The crow,
aware that his secret hiding place was
known, had moved everything to some
new spot.
Children build houses of brick indoors
and sand castles on the shore. Some
youngsters take pleasure in adorning
these sand castles with shells and sea-
weed. In the wilds Of Australia bower
birds amuse themselves in precisely the
same way. The bower birds belong to
the family of thrushes. Two sorts are
common-the satin and the spotted
bower birds. These are found in almost
all parts of the Australian bush, partic-
ularly in New South Wales.
The bower of the bower bird is in no
sense a home or nest; it is purely and
simply playhouse The spotted bower
bird builds it's bower on the ground.
The outside is of twigs. the inside dain-
tily lined with tall grasses, so arranged
that the tops nearly meet. But the odd
est part of the whole curious perform
] ance is the way in which these pretty
n