832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bread was left in the pan, but it was filled with old scraps of leather, 

 chips, bones, moldy beans, rags, etc. Searching, they found, high up 

 on a partly broken shelf, in an old tin can, their bread packed away 

 with old bacon-rinds, bones, rags, and other trash. 



In the house of one of my neighbors these mischiefs carried away 

 a lot of Indian or corn meal, and in the meal-box deposited a quantity 

 of bird-shot, which, mixed with the remaining meal, caused the house- 

 keeper great dissatisfaction. In the same house a trunk was acci- 

 dentally left open one night ; in the morning a quantity of rice, bits 

 of dried fruit, and some oats, were found mixed with loose coral beads 

 and other small trinkets ; it was an exercise of patience to separate 

 the articles, as may be readily imagined. 



With these traders exchange is no robbery, and distance small 

 hindrance ; they travel from their homes and go from barn to house, 

 from loft to cellar, and through living-rooms (noiseless when acting as 

 porters), with great speed and impartiality. A sheep-herder, return- 

 ing to his camp from a town thirty miles away, brought home a fine 

 new hat ; placing the box on his table, he went away for the night. 

 Returning, he found the box had been entered, the crown of the hat 

 eaten entirely round, and the box then filled with wool, flannel rags, 

 remains of food, wheat, and dried fruits. There was a sudden forced 

 abandonment of that unsurveyed " squatter's claim." 



Some ranchmen were gone haying for several days, camping away 

 from home. After their return they soon learned that their quarters 

 had not been unoccupied during their absence. A nest composed of 

 wool and rags filled the flour-sieve left upon a shelf ; next beside the 

 sieve stood the coffee-box, in it had been left about a pound of good 

 coffee ; now the box was filled to the top, mixed with the coffee, moldy 

 crusts, bones, and rinds, that had been scattered about the place. 

 " When I threw it all out," said the man, who was telling me, " pro- 

 voked as I was, I could not help noticing how prettily the nest was 

 made up of gnawings of an old blue army-overcoat, red flannel shirt, 

 and many white rags, put together so nicely and made so soft within." 

 This morning, going to the store-house for a lamp-chimney, I found 

 an ordinary glass chimney packed close with straw, grains of rice, 

 oats, wheat, a few beans, and chips. 



The mischief these rats can do in a single night is almost incredi- 

 ble. One, getting into a lady's room, stripped her house-plants of 

 every leaf and blossom, and hid himself behind the wardrobe, where 

 he was found next day, with a most singular accumulation of goods, 

 among them many bits of paper, a quantity of raisins, a box of 

 matches, some candle-ends, gnawed postage-stamps, and a lot of odds 

 and ends. Nothing seems to come amiss, and they are particularly 

 fascinated by anything that glitters ; often carrying off knives, spoons, 

 watches, and silver, and hiding them effectually. 



They are " good providers," and in the fall build their nests, and 



