WOOD-RATS, PACK-RATS, ETC. 105 
concerning the habits of this little creature. A miner 
told me the following: He once, during the mining 
excitement in Siskiyou County, became, in California 
parlance, ‘dead broke,’ and applied for and obtained 
employment in a mining camp, where the owner’s 
hands and all slept in the same cabin. Shortly after. 
his arrival small articles commenced to disappear; if 
a whole plug of tobacco were left on the table it would 
be gone in the morning. Finally a bag, containing 
one hundred dollars or more in gold dust, was taken 
from a small table at the head of a bunk.in which 
one of the proprietors of the claim slept. Suspicion 
fell on the newcomer, and he would perhaps have 
fared hardly, for with those. rough miners punish- 
ment is short and sharp; but just in time a large rat’s 
nest was discovered in the garret of the cabin, and 
in it was found the missing money, as well as the 
tobacco and other articles supposed to have been 
stolen.’’. 
The destructive cotton-rat. It would be pos- 
sible to write extensively, and perhaps enter- 
tainingly of a long list of other wild mice and 
rats, such as our very pretty, white-footed 
wood-mouse (Peromyscus) which, in its vari- 
ous species and subspecies, is scattered all over 
the continent; but few of them have sufficient 
economic interest to justify it. There are times 
when any or all may become dangerous by 
