to such low altitudes as Grand Junction, 4,600 feet, giving one of the 

 greatest zonal ranges of any Colorado mammal. 



This' species is the Mountain Rat, I am tempted to say of fable, and 



mmt 



X<>. 0. Mountain Rat or Pack Rat, Xeatomn cinerea orolentcs. 



Photograph by Charles E. Mace. 



certainly many fables have been told about the creature, which is well 

 known to all dwellers in its range. Were you ever in a cabin or house 

 which had a canvas or cloth ceiling, and where a rat lived? And after 

 you had turned in did you not enjoy having that rat run foot races with 

 himself all over that canvas, making as much racket as a four-horse 

 team? One rat can certainly give a fellow the impression that there are 

 a dozen of them scampering about up there. Perhaps when you roll out 

 in the morning and pull on your shoe you find a nice chip tucked away 

 in the toe. Merely Brother Rat's playfulness. Some of your smaller be- 

 longings may be missing and you find them elsewhere than where you 

 left them the night before, or even do not find them at all. Your friend 

 was very busy while you slumbered. 



Wherever these rats are found they make their homes in every 

 imaginable location. Among other places they go into abandoned mine 

 tunnels, among the drifts and timbers. I took one in an old tunnel at 

 Querida, Custer County, at a point 29, 5 feet from the entrance. It is in 

 the fall and winter that these animals are most prone to come into habita- 

 tions and other buildings, though they are just as likely to come into an 

 empty' house, a stable, or an abandoned shaft house as into an occupied 

 dwelling. I have seen green aspen leaves in their piles in at least two 

 cases, and actually saw a rat eating one of the leaves. At the same place 

 were pieces of fungus from dead logs, apparently gathered for food. 



17 



