56 



WILD ANIMALS OF C! LACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



that seems better suited to their purpose lias given them tlie name 

 of " trade rat." Many stories are told of their exchanging sticks 

 for pijoes, jackknives, or other articles that they may prefer but 

 that do not always satisfy the other party to the trade. The same 

 collecting habit has also given them the name of " pack rat " and 

 perhaps also of woodrat, for a large part of their building material 

 is of sticks, chips, and bark, and many of their houses have a very 

 woody appearance. 



To one familiar with their habits their presence in a cliff or rock 

 slide can usually be detected even at a distance by the white streaks 

 on the points and edges of the cliffs near the dens. These have some- 

 times caused geologists much perplexity, but they are merely the 



age-long accumulations of 

 calcareous matter from the 

 urine of the woodrats. In 

 some places the cliffs are 

 heavily streaked with 

 white, as though the little 

 pinnacles were touched up 

 with a paint brush, and 

 often the white stony crust 

 is 2 or 3 millimeters thick. 

 While devoted to their 

 homes, some of the wood- 

 rats are evidently pos- 

 sessed with a desire to 

 wander, for occasionally 

 one will appear in some 

 camp or cabin far from 

 the rocks, and invariably 

 take up his abode. Even 

 a part of the time by 

 occupied by the wood- 



Fig. 8. — Woodrat in his nest of moss and lictiens 

 in a cabin at the mouth of Quartz Creek. lie 

 had been killed by some passer-by and left on 

 the floor, and "was put in his own nest and photo- 

 graphed in as natural a pose as possible, but 

 without the animated expression of life. 



the ranger cabins, which are occupied 

 their rightful owners, are often also 

 rats. xVt the cabin on the west side of Waterton Lake the animals 

 had built nests and stick piles in the storage room but evidently had 

 been caught or driven away by the ranger. In another abandoned 

 cabin at the upper end of Waterton Lake they had two beautiful 

 nests of chewed-up tow from a gunny sack, one on the floor in the 

 corner and the other on an old bed. The door had been left open 

 about 4 inches, where it stuck tight, and in order to close it as much 

 as possible they had piled sticks and chips in the opening. On the 

 old bunk in the corner of the cabin a bushel or more of green leaves 

 and stems of plants had been piled up and had become dry and 

 green like good fresh hay. Among them I recognized thimbleberry, 

 mountain ash, meadow rue, Actaea^ and other familiar plants which 

 grew about the cabin. The open spaces between the double roofs of 



