80 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



spaces underneath, and an abundance of green food 

 from cactus pads and a great variety of green plants, 

 with many seeds, nutlets, and fruits, afford them com- 

 fortable and prosperous homes. 



Trails leading from one house to another suggest a 

 sociable life, but the storing habit, strongly developed 

 in the species, puts a limit on their sociability. Rarely 

 more than one adult is found in a house, but the young 

 remain with their mother until well grown. 



The mother wood rat, if alarmed or forced to leave 

 the house, takes her small young with her, carrying 

 the two to four little ones clinging for dear life with 

 hooked incisors to her nipples while she drags them 

 rapidly along the well worn trail to another house or 

 to safe cover. Many times this saves the lives of the 

 young, but not always, for foxes and other small 

 carnivores can follow the trails and sometimes capture 

 both young and old. 



At the edge of one wood rat house I saw a shrike 

 pecking vigorously at something, and on scaring it away 

 found a half-grown wood rat, with broken skull, which 

 the bird had been in the act of killing. Owls and the 

 smaller carnivores get many, while hawks occasionally 

 capture them early in the evening. 



The gray wood rat is about the size of the white- 

 throated, but with shorter tail and clear ashy gray 

 color above, and white below. 



