1919] Dixon: Bushy-tailed Wood Rats of California 65 



Nevada. The cool habitat of these rats lies for the most part well 

 above the range of most of the snakes, so they are probably rarel}'' 

 bothered by this type of enemy. 



FOEAGING 



From their homes in rockslides or boulder piles the bushy-tails 

 make foraging excursions for some distance into the adjacent terri- 

 tory. Although these rodents are very industrious there is usually 

 little sign of activity to be noted about their homes. Unlike their 

 round-tailed cousins of the lowlands, the mountain rats do not form 

 radiating paths or runways between nests or from the nest to the 

 feeding ground. The foraging expeditions are sometimes relatively 

 extensive, the rats having been found to have traveled as far as 

 150 yards to the feeding grounds. 



FOOD 



Food preferences are rather strongly in evidence among bushy- 

 tailed wood rats. However, such preferences have been found to vary 

 greatly with locality and season. The following selected instances will 

 afford some idea of the variety and kinds of food taken. In the 

 vicinity of Kearsarge Pass, in the high Sierra just north of Mount 

 Whitney, we found these animals feeding extensively on the red elder- 

 berry {Sambucus racemosa). On May 27, 1912, on the eastern side 

 of Kearsarge Pass, H. S. Swarth (MS) "found one or two patches of 

 elder with the limbs extensively gnawed, apparently by the rats. 

 They seemed to be after the outer bark, which was destroyed to the 

 height at which the limb might be expected to bear the weight of an 

 animal this size." 



On September 2, 1916, at Bullfrog Lake, at the western portal 

 of Kearsarge Pass, the present author found Teonoma cutting the 

 green stalks of the red elderberry which were then in fruit and flower. 

 These bushes were located from 50 to 100 yards distant from the rock 

 piles in which the rats lived. In this instance the terminal ten or 

 twelve inches of the green stalks were gnawed off and the tips were 

 then carried by the wood rats to their abode in the rocks. The cutting 

 was all done after dark. At times the freshly cut shoots were left 

 scattered about where cut, and after an exposure to the sun for a day 

 or two, when they became wilted and partly dried, they were gathered 



