100 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
a family, but never by a colony. Wood-rats are social 
and visit back and forth from one house to another 
until well-worn trails often connect the houses and 
lead to the feeding grounds. The food of these ani- 
mals is mainly seeds, berries, and many kinds of green 
foliage. Where the houses are located near the edges 
of fields, grain, fruits, and vegetables are sometimes 
FIELD-NEST OF BAILEY’S WOOD-RAT. 
From Warren’s ‘‘Mammals of Colorado.’’ By Permission of G. P. 
Putnam’s Sons. Photo by H. W. Nash. 
eaten or carried away and stored up for food, but 
fortunately the rats are never sufficiently numerous 
to do serious damage. Their houses are easily de- 
stroyed and the occupants captured by a few min- 
utes’ work with a shovel, or the rats can readily be 
trapped or poisoned. They frequently enter cabins 
