28O ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



were found gorged with them; and coyotes killed many. 34 These rats 

 are 'Very destructive to ripening tomatoes," and destroyed a third of 

 the crop in one truck garden. 35 The Chisos cotton rat (S. ochrog- 

 nathus) lives in the Chisos Mountains and feeds "on the stems of grass 

 and various small plants." 36 



Dusky-footed wood rats (Neotoma fuscipes) "subsist on a great 

 variety of green vegetation, including grasses, leaves, fresh fruits, small 

 bulbs, bark and flowers. . . . We found maple leaves stored to the sur- 

 prising amount of a full bushel in a single nest. In one instance a nest 

 twenty feet from the ground contained no less than six quarts of 

 maple seeds. Acorns and hazelnuts, along with fruit-pits of prune, 

 plum and cherry also occurred." The food fragments found in 63 nests 

 included 37 kinds of trees, shrubs and herbs, 16 varieties having been 

 found in one nest. 37 Western bushy- tailed wood rat (N. cinerea Occi- 

 dent alls}, injured apple and cherry trees in an Oregon orchard by 

 gnawing the bark and girdling branches. 38 Mountain or pack rat (N. c. 

 orolestes), does but little damage to crops, but is a great nuisance 

 about dwellings because of its thieving propensities. It carries away 

 "almost anything portable," and destroys stored food, clothing, bed- 

 ding and rugs. 39 This species is one of the hosts of the spotted fever 

 tick, which, together with the fact that they enter dwellings, makes 

 them a source of special danger in fever-infested districts. 40 Pale bushy- 

 tailed wood rat (N. c. rupicola) : the contents of stomachs examined 

 consisted mostly of green vegetation, but these rats are eager also for 

 grain, fruit, bacon, and various other food. 41 



Allegheny wood or cliff rat (N. pennsylvanica) : food "mainly of 

 vegetable origin and consists in part of hickory nuts, acorns, chestnuts 

 and the tender leaves of herbaceous plants." 42 Its "middens," or rub- 

 bish heaps included fern fronds, coral fungi, mushrooms, puffballs, 

 red oak acorns and leaves, Juneberry (Amelanchier) twigs and leaves, 

 wild cherry, elder, etc., and storing fungi is "a well-developed in- 



34 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, pp. 115-117, 1905. 



85 Strecker, Notes on the Texas cotton and Attwater wood rats, Journ. Mam- 

 malogy, x, 216-220, 1929. 



38 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, p. 118, 1905. 



37 English, The dusky-footed wood rat (Neotoma fuscipes), Journ. Mammalogy, 

 iv, 1-9, 1923. 



38 Dice, Wood rat damage to fruit trees in eastern Oregon, Journ. Mammalogy, 

 vi, 282, 1925. 



39 Burnett, Office Colorado State Entom. Circular No. 25, p. 9, 1918. 



40 Birdseye, Farmers' Bull. No. 484. p. 31, 1912. 



41 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 86, 1926. 



42 Howell, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 45, p. 53, 1921. 



