MAMMALIA BODBNTIA DIAGBAM 3. 43 



quite thin, and begins to eat and fatten itself again. The mar- 

 mots like to live in company ; they play in the meadows, but 

 take care first to put a kind of sentinel on a rock above them, 

 who utters a low cry when he perceives anything that might 

 disturb the festival, and the whole band takes to flight. 



THE RATS. The rat family are the greatest enemies to our 

 dwellings. The mouse does less mischief than the others, on 

 account of its small size, but it has a peculiarly disagreeable 

 odour. There are two kinds of rats, the Hack and the brown. 

 The fur of the latter is of a reddish brown. Neither are 

 indigenous in our country, and came from Asia. Their voracity 

 is incredible. They often eat their young ones, and if several 

 are enclosed in a box, they eat each other till only the strongest 

 is left ; and even this has always been seriously wounded in 

 the battles which have taken place. 



Rats and mice are frequently met with which are perfectly 

 white, and they are then called albinos. This name is also given 

 to men who have white hair from youth, and red eyes. 

 Generally they cannot bear a strong light. White mice, rats 

 and rabbits, have also red eyes, and do not seem to see very well 

 in broad daylight. 



The fitld-mice may be known by their tails ending in a tuft of 



long hair, while that of rats 

 and mice is scaly. They 

 are the same pests to the 

 country j that rats are in 

 houses. However, they are 



not lar S r than a mouse > and 

 their fur is yellowish brown above, and dirty yellow under the 



belly. The short tailed field mouse lives on fruits and roots, but 

 it prefers corn to everything else. It eats the seeds, and cuts 

 the stalks of ripe corn ; it carries to its burrow what it cannot 

 eat on the spot, and thus stocks its small granary abundantly. 

 Sometimes the short-tailed field-mice have been known to 

 multiply to such an extent in a district as to become a public 

 calamity, and to prevent any harvest being gathered in. 



