• i 
28 Jan. 
It was cold again and Lhe rats without much body fat died in the 
traps, they were saved for autopsy. Vfe captured 121 animals. The 
morning wa^ cloudy and cool. We finished by 1100 
% 
G«ne*An Observations# 
The traps need to be worked on and I will replace all the chewed 
off treddles before next months trapping. The low catch was not due 
to poor working traps since many of the traps whikh did not c a tch animals 
were checked and were in working order with oatmeal at the entrance of 
the trap and no rat tried to enter or didturb the t ap. 
Rats were lost to the cold weather which did not have .ody fat 
and these animals were weak and in bad general body condition and I did 
not feel while handling them them that they had lo^g to live with the 
population conditions as they exist on Jure now. 
I h ad trouble figuring out how to distinguish between adult and 
subadult animals. On the Females if the vulva was perforate I called 
it an adult. Tven animals that I felt had never bred were called 
adult if the vulva was perforate, I think the data will explain to 
you what the breeding condition was. On males I had a liferent 
problem but I think you will be able to figure out the age of the 
animal from checking the related collected data on the animal. On males 
if the teste was developed I celled it an adult and if undeveloped i 
called it an subadult. Sometime during the first day I beaame feery 
frustrated on the subject of what to call male rats, there were indivi iaa s 
which I thought had breed last year but the teste and cremaster were 
completly undeveloped, so the arfcitary classification I assigned to 
these individuals I am sure is all fouled up. On newly marked ra s 
I tried to figure out if they had breed bdfore but was never sure. 
Some of the A and 3 series punched ears are hard to distinguish 
and growing shut. On some of them I could only see the scar and repunched 
them, if the punch was not completly removed it often grew back 
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©wtmis L. Shad el 
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