22G The Ottawa Naturalist. 



ever this fiend is thinking of what deviltry it can be up to next ; it is 

 evidently bent on finding a suitable place for a nest. That is the very 

 first consideration, and it will probably choose a corner of the cellar 

 or the attic. They will build their nest steadily for a week and make 

 it of everything one would think utterly useless for the purpose. For 

 instance, the first nest we discovered was made of old clothes as a 

 foundation, plentifully mixed up with knives, forks and spoons, about a 

 bushel of old corn cobs, three dried (Sow's tails, a few books and some 

 lumps of mineral, quartz, etc, evidently this rat was a prospector. 

 Having built their nest, which seems to be for living in as much as for 

 rearing a family, they then proceed to make sleep at night utterly 

 impossible for the inmates of the house. One would imagine that some 

 large animal was making hay in the kitchen, bang I and down goes the* 

 bread pan, then a tray,then thump, thump, thump, and overgoes the stove 

 at least you think so but it is only the stove pipe ; you sit up and 

 throw a boot, and silence reigns for five minutes, by which time the boot is 

 down in the cellar or up in the attic. At the end of that time one of 

 the rats perhaps runs right across you face, and in striking at it you 

 knock all the skin off your knuckles and then hear the same old thump, 

 thump, thump, inside the wall. 



The smell of this animal is vile, and very few cats will fight one ; 

 those who do have a heavy contract in hand, for they are even stronger 

 than they look, or smelk A figure 4 trap, with a weight of about 60 

 pounds (not less ! ! !), will hold a Bush-rat down. There are only two baits 

 that are sure, one is dried apple, but better by far is a bait of a looking 

 glass or a tin toy of some sort. Even the cut-out top of a milk tin 

 makes a good bait, while a silver spoon is simply irrisistible, as they seem 

 to think that the nest always needs a little more ornamenting. These 

 rats are not so destructive in what they eat as in what they carry off, and 

 the only case in which I have heard of one being useful, was that of a 

 man who had lost a twenty dollar gold piece in his barn ; he knew that 

 he had \<>j{ it somewhere in the stock yard, eit her in the stable, pigstye 

 or barn, and some weeks afterwards went out prospecting for 6 months, 

 next winter he returned to his cabin, and lo ! the $20 piece was on the 

 corner of the dining table ornamenting a Bush-rat's nest, together with 





