RODENTIA 



151 



They may be gregarious, sociable, or solitary, and the 

 majority seem to be polygamous. Some, like the Squirrel, are 

 monogamous, but they may change their mate at the end of a 

 season. 



Many species have been regularly kept in confinement either 

 for their beauty, as the squirrels, rats or mice, or for the use of 

 their fur and flesh, as the Rabbit. All but the first have now 

 been so thoroughly domesticated that there are many distinct 

 artificial breeds in existence ; which, however, are quite fertile 

 with each other or with the wild form. Many wild species of 

 rats and mice may also without much difficulty be induced to 

 breed in captivity, but the hares are not easily managed unless 

 they are provided with a run on grass. The Common Squirrel, 

 although it thrives well in confinement, has only been known to 

 produce young in a very few instances, and never in the second 

 generation. 



Rodents are subjects of somewhat varied attention by 

 humanity in general, since (to take British examples only) the 

 hares and rabbits are of special interest to the sportsman, 

 the cook, and the furrier ; the rats and mice, except by 

 those who keep them as pets, are commonly regarded 

 as vermin. On the other hand, the extinct Beaver was the 

 possessor of most interesting habits, as well as of fur so super- 

 excellent as to be its own undoing ; the Squirrel and Dormouse 

 will always attract attention by their beauty and graceful agility. 

 Apart from the utility of the hares and the rabbits as food and 

 objects of the chase, and the value of their fur, as well as of 

 that of the Beaver and Squirrel, little can be said in praise of 

 any British rodent from an economical point of view. The 

 Dormouse alone is innocuous. The Squirrel will be shown 

 to be injurious to woods. All the hares, the rabbits, and 

 the whole tribe of rats and mice are in varying degrees 

 direcdy harmful to agriculturists, and the Common Rat and 

 Mouse live almost entirely at the expense of man. This is the 

 case especially in England, where their natural enemies, four- 

 footed and winged, have been to so great an extent exter- 

 minated by game - preservers. Occasionally under these 

 circumstances one or other of the smaller murines may become 

 so numerous as to occasion what is called a "plague," details 



