516 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



forces them out and they wander widely in 

 search of new locations. When encountered at 

 such times they show extraordinary cour..ge 

 and fiercely attack man or beast. The lirst 

 muskrat I ever saw was one which a farmer 

 met in midwinter in a snowy road in northern 

 New York. As soon as the man drew near, 

 the animal rushed at him with bared teeth and 

 fought savagely until killed. 



Muskrats are usually harmless animals and 

 their presence in marshes and along water- 

 courses lends a pleasant touch of primitive 

 wildness to the most commonplace situations. 

 They appear to have so adapted their habits to 

 the presence of men that they go on with their 

 affairs with curious indifference to their human 

 neighbors. In irrigated country or elsewhere 

 where banked ditches are built their habits ren- 

 der them serious pests, as their burrows and 

 tunnels drain ponds or cause destructive wash- 

 outs. 



An interesting chapter in the history of these 

 animals began in 1905, when four Canadian 

 muskrats were introduced on a nobleman's es- 

 tate in Bohemia. Since then they have in- 

 creased rapidly and spread over a large area 

 in Bohemia and beyond its borders. The 

 streams in the region they occupy are con- 

 trolled by grassy banks, and dams are built to 

 form ponds for tish culture, which is a large 

 industry there. The muskrats persistently tun- 

 nel into the banks and dams, causing them to 

 give way, thus causing heavy losses to the 

 owners. 



They also work havoc among river crabs and 

 mussels, which have great economic value, and 

 interfere with the tish and their spawning beds. 

 To cap the climax of their misdeeds, they are 

 reported to feed on grain and vegetables and 

 to destroy the eggs of domestic poultry and of 

 wild-fowl. It is reported also that these ex- 

 patriates in their foreign environment have be- 

 come larger animals than their ancestors, and 

 that their fur has greatly deteriorated in qual- 

 ity. The measures prescribed by the Agricul- 

 iural Council of the Kingdom of Bohemia for 

 their control are apparently without much suc- 

 cess. This instance is a good illustration of 

 the danger attending the introduction of an 

 animal from its native habitat into a new 

 region. 



THE WOODRAT (Neotoma albigula and 



its relatives) 



(For illustration, see page 526) 



In the East known as woodrats, in the West, 

 where much more numerous and better known, 

 these animals are called "mountain rats" or 

 ''trade rats." Despite a certain superficial re- 

 semblance in size and appearance, woodrats are 

 not related to those exotic parasites, the house 

 rats, with coarse hair and bare tails, but are 

 far more attractive and handsome animals, 

 clothed in fine soft fur, delicately colored above 

 in soft shades of gray, buffy, or ferruginous, 

 while below they are usually snowy white or 

 buffy. The tail is fully haired and in some 



species almost as broad and bushy as that of a 

 squirrel. Their prominent black eyes and large 

 ears give them an air of vivacious intelligence 

 which their habits appear to confirm. 



Woodrats are peculiar to North America, 

 where they occur from Pennsylvania and Illi- 

 nois to the Gulf coast, spreading thence to the 

 Pacific and as far north as the headwaters of 

 the Yukon, and south through Mexico and 

 Central America to Nicaragua. They are not 

 plentiful in the southern M'lssissippi Valley and 

 eastward, where they live aUiong cliffs and 

 broken ledges of rock in the deciduous forests, 

 and well deserve their common name. In this 

 region their presence is rarely suspected except 

 b\' hunters or others familiar with woodland 

 li'fe. 



Far more numerous and widely known in 

 the Western States and throughout most of 

 Mexico, they have adapted themselves to life 

 under every climatic condition, from the most 

 sun-scorched deserts of the southwest and the 

 splendid redwood forests of the humid coastal 

 region in northern California to the tropical 

 lowlands farther south. 



They live nearly everywhere on the moun- 

 tain slopes, even to timber-line at 13.800 feet 

 on Mount Orizaba. They thrive in an extraor- 

 dinary variety of situations, not only where 

 they may find shelter among rocks, but also 

 where they must seek safety in nests made on 

 tlie surface of the ground or in burrows dug 

 by themselves. They are prolific animals and 

 each year have several litters containing from 

 two to five young. 



The presence of woodrats is generally indi- 

 cated by accumulations of odds and ends filling 

 the crevices of the rocks about their retreats 

 or piled about the entrances of their burrows, 

 such accumulations including small sticks, 

 pieces of bark, leaves, cactus burrs, bones, 

 stones, and any other small objects which may 

 be found in the vicinity. 



Sometimes these piles of. fragments seem to 

 be made merely for amusement or to work off 

 surplus energy, as they form useless gatherings, 

 sucii as heaps of small stones, frequently con- 

 taining a bushel or more, piled on the rounded 

 tops of small protruding boulders in open des- 

 ert areas, or small heaps of sticks and other 

 material scattered aimlessly about their haunts. 

 In the desert where cactuses of many kinds 

 aliMund woodrats' nests are often made at the 

 b:ises of these or other thorny plants and are 

 covered with such a protective coating of cac- 

 tus burrs as to deter the most insistent enemy. 

 In the heavy forests of northern California 

 woodrats build huge conical nests of sticks 

 several feet in diameter on the ground, rising 

 to a height of five feet or more. 



In southern California and elsewhere some 

 species make great nests of sticks eight to 

 twenty feet from the ground in live oaks and 

 other trees. The stick-pile nests on the ground 

 usually have several entrances, with trails lead- 

 ing from them, and the underground burrows 

 usually have two or more openings. 



As may lie surmised from their habits, wood- 

 rats are skillful climbers, both in trees and on 



