Till-: UV8R-RAT. 



have spread bo as to threaten i ndustry, ns 



they crop the herbage, leaving none for thi 



onyhas alone lost, in 1882, 2,000,1 sheep by them. Allied 



to the hares is the social pika or little chief hare i Lagomys 

 princeps), which abounds among loose rocks from a little 

 below timber-line to the snow-line in the Rocky Mountains. 



reel like a marmot, and makes squeaking, faint bl 

 ing cries,* which appear to come from a greater distj 

 than is really the cast 1 1 r< -• moles in shape and color the 

 Guinea-pi?, and is onlj seven or eight inches long, b< 

 of the size of a rat. The largest of all existing rodents is the 

 capybara of South America, which looks like a pig. This is 

 succeeded by the Blow, ugly porcupine (Fig. 315), which 

 either lives in trees or burrows in the earth; it cats the bark 

 and leaves of pine, larch, spruce and other trees, and the 

 buds of tin willow. The quills fall out at the sligl 

 touch, and. lodged in the skin of a dog or wolf, are said in 

 some cases to make their way into the body until they cause 

 death. The porcupine makes its retreat among the i 

 of an old tree, where it sleeps much of the time. When 

 disturbed it makes a whining or mewing noisi . [! pair- in 

 British America at the end of September, and brings forth 

 two young ones in April or May. The more intelligent, 

 active forms are the beaver, musk-rat, the European blind 

 rat (Spalax, Pig. 296) the rats and mice, squirrels, and 

 lastly the marmots. The domestic mouse and the two 

 rats, the in-own or Norway rat {Mus deatmanus), the black 

 rat {Mus ratius), and the common house n, 

 mu8culus), are cosmopolitan animals. The musk-rat 

 musquash {Fiber Zibethicus) has the hind feet partly wel 

 so that it swims and dives well. It ranges from Florida to 

 Arctic America. Northward it lias three litters in the 

 course of the summer, and from thn ven at a lil 



It feeds on the roots and tender shoots of rushes and 



* Mr. J. A. All. n saya " a sharp, slirill, barking crj ;" ul thi ae we 

 have beard in Colorado seem more like :i faint bleat 



