16 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
flicted by foxes, minks, weasels, skunks, hawks 
and owls combined; but mostly one or all of 
these are made to take the blame. 
‘‘Not long since, in a published account of depre- 
dations on poultry, the damage was attributed to a 
skunk. The statement was made that both eggs and 
young chicks were taken from under a sitting hen 
without disturbing her. This is a trick peculiar to 
the rat, and it is evident that a mistake was made 
as to the identity of the thief. 
‘‘Where rats are numerous in springtime, they 
often prey upon young chicks, capturing them in the 
nest and in and around the coops. I have known 
them to take nearly all the chicks on a large poultry 
ranch, and, in the same neighborhood and over a 
large territory, to destroy nearly 50 per cent. of the 
season’s hatching. Young ducks, turkeys, and pi- 
geons are equally liable to attack, and where rats are 
numerous are safe only in rat-proof coops. 
“‘A writer in a western agricultural paper states 
that in 1904 rats robbed him of an entire summer’s 
hatehing of three or four hundred chicks. A cor- 
respondent of another journal says, ‘Rats destroyed 
enough grain and poultry on this place in one season 
to pay our taxes for three years.” When it is re- 
membered that the poultry and eggs produced each 
year from the farms of the United States have a 
value of over $600,000,000, it will be seen that even 
a small percentage of loss aggregates a large sum.”’ 
