
WOOD 
teeth robbery. Whether -this is true | 
will not say. Certainly it sounds a little 
fishy but the report has come from per- 
sons who in other respects seemed truth- 
ful, and we all know that Nature plays 
some funny pranks. 
RAT, NEOTOMA CINEREA. 
Wood rats have been known to do great 
damage around mills by cutting up leather { 
belting, and on ranches they make free 
with the owner’s grain and provisions. 
Their principal enemies are weasels, 
martens and owls. 

ACMA DIN TG Ela sees Ne NM Oise 
For 2 years we had been bothered by a 
pack-rat, and he certainly deserved the 
name, for nothing was too good or too bad 
for him to pack off; not food alone, but 
anything. It was wonderful the amount 
and size of things he could carry away. 
He took everything in the way of 
victuals, bread, meat and butter. He even 
dragged a biscuit as big as my fist across 
the room, and only stopped then because he 
couldn't get it down the hole. 
If he had remained contented with edibles 
he might have been alive yet, for the cats 
wouldn't dare interfere. 
Alas, his officiousness finally brought 
upon him the ill will of the whole house. 
This however, did not seem to put him 
out any. He kept up his nocturnal vis- 
its, creaming the milk, reprinting the but- 
ter, upsetting cans and buckets and 
scampering over the floor at such a rate as’ 
sometimes to waken us. 
At first a sudden noise would send him 
to his hole in a hurry, but that soon got old 
and I think he enjoyed it latterly. 
Even this we could have put up with but 
every night saw another French frill or 
enormous air hole in the most ridiculous 
places. Even the shoes did not escape his 
sharp teeth. We could not keep a thing 
any place to be safe till morning. 
This went on till one morning found a 
pair of father’s drawers, his best and last 
brought over from Bonny Scotland, chew- 
ed into a mass of wool. This was enough. — 
Father’s patience was exhausted, and he | 
came down on us boys hot and hard for 
permitting the brute to live so long. Why 
couldn’t we trap or shoot him; that was the 
rub! ¥ : 

