336 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



Another point characteristic of the rodent's mouth is the peculiar manner of 

 growth of the hairy integument, which is continued inward behind the incisors, 

 and apparently prevents the wood or other hard substance the animal is gnawing, and 

 which is not intended for food, from getting into his throat. 



The rodents are nearly all of comparatively small size, but make up for this 

 in their great numbers, both of species, of which there are over 900 known in 

 the world, and of individuals, which are far more plentiful than of any other 

 group. They are all herbivorous, only occasionally taking to animal food, and 

 they obtain their food by gnawing. They are found in all sorts of habitats; some, 

 like the squirrels, being arboreal, and being even provided with a parachute for 

 taking long leaps from tree to tree; others, like the hares, are cursorial; the 

 kangaroo mice are agile jumpers, the mole rats are burrowers and the beavers 

 and water voles aquatic. 



Then, too, the group is the most cosmopolitan of any, no country being without 

 some representative of it. This, however, is partly due to the agency of man, 

 for wherever he goes the domestic rats and mice follow him. 



In New York State the rodent population numbers twenty-eight species, and of 

 these the largest, the beaver, is now extinct. Attempts, however, are now being 

 made to reintroduce him into the Adirondacks, two small colonies having recently 

 been placed in different parts. It is to be hoped that this experiment will prove 

 to be successful, for the beaver is the most interesting of the rodents and everyone 

 knows of his tree cutting and dam building operations. Then, too, he is of 

 considerable interest, for his was one of the most valuable furs found in the New 

 World, and was the object of eager pursuit by the early settlers. Many were 

 the quarrels which arose, not only between individuals, but even between the 

 colonies, in regard to the proper delimitation of the trapping grounds. So numerous 

 was he in those early days that, according to Pennant, 54,670 skins were sold in 

 a single sale of the Hudson' Bay Company. In fact, so important was he 

 recognized to be to the commonwealth, that the provincial seal of New Netherland 

 was a beaver on a shield. 



The muskrat is another form which was hunted for its fur, though that is of 

 greatly inferior value to that of the beaver. Still, Richardson, writing in 1829, 

 says that between four and five hundred thousand skins were annually imported 

 into Great Britain from North America. At the present time it is mainly the 

 object of pursuit of the small boy, for it is probably the most easily trapped of 

 our mammals, besides being quite common in inhabited districts. They prefer 

 swamps and sluggish streams, and in the Adirondacks, in such places, their irregular 

 mound-like winter huts, composed of aquatic plants and mud, are often to be 



