CLASS MAMMALIA 689 



jurious, since they include such notorious pests as the rabbits, 

 rats, and mice. Rabbits are vegetarians, feeding on leaves; 

 stems, flowers, seeds, buds, bark, and fruit. They damage 

 especially clover, alfalfa, peas, cabbages, and the bark of trees. 

 Young fruit, forest, and ornamental trees and shrubs in nurseries 

 are subject to injury from rabbits, and frequently the branches 

 and twigs within reach are cut off, or the bark is removed near 

 the base of the trunk, thus girdling the tree and causing its death. 

 Mice feed principally on stems, leaves, seeds, bulbs, roots, and 

 other kinds of vegetation. A single field mouse devours in one 

 year from twenty to thirty-six pounds of green vegetation, and 

 a thousand mice in one meadow would require at least twelve 

 tons annually. Damage is done to meadows and pastures, to 

 grains and forage, to garden crops, to small fruits, to nursery 

 stock, to orchards, to forest trees, and to parks and lawns. 



" The rat is the worst mammalian pest known to man. Its 

 depredations throughout the world result in losses amounting to 

 hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But these losses, great 

 as they are, are of less importance than the fact that rats carry 

 from house to house and from seaport to seaport the germs of 

 the dreaded plague." (Lantz.) The amount of loss due to rats 

 in the United States is not known; in Germany the loss is esti- 

 mated at $50,000,000 per year. The losses in this country are 

 as follows: a large part of the crops of cultivated grains are often 

 destroyed by rats; " the loss of poultry due to rats is probably 

 greater than that inflicted by foxes, minks, weasels, skunks, 

 hawks, and owls combined " (Lantz); rats are a serious pest in 

 game preserves, feeding upon the eggs and young of pheasants, 

 etc. ; fruits and vegetables both before and after being gathered 

 are damaged by rats; and miscellaneous merchandise in stores, 

 markets, and warehouses suffers injuries second only to that done 

 to grains. Rats eat bulbs, flowers, and seeds in greenhouses, 

 set fire to buildings by gnawing matches, depreciate the value 

 of buildings and furniture, and are injurious in many other 

 ways. 



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