WOOD-EATS, PACK-RATS, ETC. 105 



concerning the habits of this little creature. A miner 

 told me the following: He once, during the mining 

 excitement in Siskiyou County, became, in California 

 parlance, 'dead broke,' and applied for and obtained 

 employment in a mining camp, where the owner's 

 hands and all slept in the same cabin. Shortly after 

 his arrival small articles commenced to disappear; if 

 a whole plug of tobacco were left on the table it would 

 be gone in the morning. Finally a bag, containing 

 one hundred dollars or more in gold dust, was taken 

 from a small table at the head of a bunk in which 

 one of the proprietors of the claim slept. Suspicion 

 fell on the newcomer, and he would perhaps have 

 fared hardly, for with those rough miners punish- 

 ment is short and sharp ; but just in time a large rat's 

 nest was discovered in the garret of the cabin, and 

 in it was found the missing money, as well as the 

 tobacco and other articles supposed to have been 

 stolen." 



The destructive cotton-rat. It would be pos- 

 sible to write extensively, and perhaps enter- 

 tainingly of a long list of other wild mice and 

 rats, such as our very pretty, white-footed 

 wood-mouse (Peromyscus) which, in its vari- 

 ous species and subspecies, is scattered all over 

 the continent; but few of them have sufficient 

 economic interest to justify it. There are times 

 when any or all may become dangerous by 



