24 THE BROWN EAT IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Nests of wild ducks, woodcock, and other marsh birds are fre- 

 quently destroyed by rats. Terns have been driven from their nest- 

 ing grounds and entire colonies broken up in this way. Professor 

 Mayer, of the Department of Marine Biology, Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington, wrote, May 3, 1908, that rats had almost exter- 

 minated the colony of least terns on Loggerhead Key, Tortugas 

 Islands. They destroyed also nearly all the gulls' and other birds' 

 eggs laid on the key. A more recent letter from Professor Mayer 

 states that, through systematic use of traps and poisons, all the 

 terns hatched during the summer of 1908 were saved. 



Rats eat also the eggs of nearly all kinds of ground-nesting song 

 birds, and the real offender is seldom even suspected. Crows, jays, 

 snakes, and skunks get much of the blame for the destruction; and 

 while some of them share in the guilt, rats are, after all, the most 

 serious enemies of song and game birds. 



FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 



The damage done by rats to fruits and vegetables while stored in 

 cellars and pits is well known. If any garden vegetable or common 

 fruit is immune to their attacks, the fact has thus far escaped notice. 

 But the extent to which the animals prey upon fruits and vegetables 

 before they are harvested is not generally known. Bats attack ripe 

 tomatoes, melons, cantaloupes, squashes, pumpkins, sweet corn, 

 and many other vegetables in the field, and the depredations are 

 often attributed to rabbits. Often both rats and rabbits take 

 toll from the same field or garden, and the work of the former is 

 unsuspected. 



Rats are fond of nearly all small fruits, picking them up from the 

 ground arid even climbing grape vines, raspberry or blackberry canes, 

 and currant or gooseberry bushes to obtain the ripe fruit. 



The brown rat often feeds upon ripe apples, pears, cherries, and 

 other fruits that have lallen to the ground, but it has been known to 

 climb even to the extremities of the branches to obtain ripe apples. a 

 Capt. R. R. Raymond, U. S. Army, records the following: 



Just west of old Fort Clinton, at West Point, N. Y., there was, about twenty-five 

 years ago, a deep hollow, in the bottom of which several cherry trees grew. The hol- 

 low was used as a dump and was gradually filled level, but at the time mentioned was 

 the home of a great many Norway rats. I often visited the hollow for cherries and 

 frequently met rats in the trees on the same errand as myself .& 



Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, Washington, 

 D. C, informs the writer that during a single afternoon he shot 28 

 rats from the branches of a cherry tree growing in the heart of the 

 city. The rats were feeding on the ripe fruit. 



a The Field (London), vol. 78, p. 660. 

 b Shields' Magazine, vol. 5, p. 123, 1907. 



