162 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



(n) Finding that a little time remained, they carried up the 

 whole of their nest materials, made up the nest anew, and 

 settled down within it for better or for worse. 



Now, this is no effort of our imagination. It is a story of 

 actual facts, all of which can be proven by three competent 

 witnesses. How many human beings similarly dispossessed 

 and robbed of home and stores, act with the same cool judgment, 

 celerity and precision that those five tiny creatures then and 

 there displayed? 



The Wood Rat, Pack Rat, or Trading Rat. Although 

 I have met this wonderful creature (Neotoma) in various places 

 on its native soil, I will quote from another and perfectly 

 reliable observer a sample narrative of its startling mental 

 traits. At Oak Lodge, east coast of Florida, we lived for a 

 time in the home of a pair of pack rats whose eccentric work was 

 described to me by Mrs. C. F. Latham, as follows: 



First they carried a lot of watermelon seeds from the ground 

 floor upstairs, and hid them under a pillow on a bed. Then they 

 took from the kitchen a tablespoonful of cucumber seeds and 

 hid them in the pocket of a vest that hung upstairs on a nail. 

 In one night they removed from box number one, eighty five 

 pieces of bee-hive furniture, and hid them in another box. On 

 the following night they deposited in box number one about 

 two quarts of corn and oats. 



Western frontiersmen and others who live in the land of the 

 pack rat relate stories innumerable of the absurd but industrious 

 doings of these eccentric creatures. The ways of the pack rat 

 are so erratic that I find it impossible to figure out by any rules 

 known to me the workings of their minds. Strange to say, 

 they are not fiends and devils of malice and destruction like the 

 brown rat of civilization, and on the whole it seems that the 

 destruction of valuable property is not by any means a part 

 of their plan. They have a passion for moving things. Their 

 vagaries seem to be due chiefly to caprice, and an overwhelming 

 desire to keep exceedingly busy. 



