16 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



flicted by foxes, minks, weasels, skunks, hawks 

 and owls combined; but mostly one or all of 

 these are made to take the blame. 



"Not long since, in a published account of depre- 

 dations on poultry, the damage was attributed to a 

 skunk. The statement was made that both eggs and 

 young chicks were taken from under a sitting hen 

 without disturbing her. This is a trick peculiar to 

 the rat, and it is evident that a mistake was made 

 as to the identity of the thief. 



"Where rats are numerous in springtime, they 

 often prey upon young chicks, capturing them in the 

 nest and in and around the coops. I have known 

 them to take nearly all the chicks on a large poultry 

 ranch, and, in the same neighborhood and over a 

 large territory, to destroy nearly 50 per cent, of the 

 season's hatching. Young ducks, turkeys, and pi- 

 geons are equally liable to attack, and where rats are 

 numerous are safe only in rat-proof coops. 



"A writer in a western agricultural paper states 

 that in 1904 rats robbed him of an entire summer's 

 hatching of three or four hundred chicks. A cor- 

 respondent of another journal says, 'Rats destroyed 

 enough grain and poultry on this place in one season 

 to pay our taxes for three years.' When it is re- 

 membered that the poultry and eggs produced each 

 year from the farms of the United States have a 

 value of over $600,000,000, it will be seen that even 

 a small percentage of loss aggregates a large sum." 



