Part 18

In the East known as woodrats, in the West, where much more numerous and better known, these animals are called “mountain rats” or “trade rats.” Despite a certain superficial resemblance in size and appearance, woodrats are not related to those exotic parasites, the house rats, with coarse hair and bare tails, but are far more attractive and handsome animals, clothed in fine soft fur, delicately colored above in soft shades of gray, buffy, or ferruginous, while below they are usually snowy white or buffy. The tail is fully haired and in some species almost as broad and bushy as that of a squirrel. Their prominent black eyes and large ears give them an air of vivacious intelligence which their habits appear to confirm.

Woodrats are peculiar to North America, where they occur from Pennsylvania and Illinois to the Gulf coast, spreading thence to the Pacific and as far north as the headwaters of the Yukon, and south through Mexico and Central America to Nicaragua. They are not plentiful in the southern Mississippi Valley and eastward, where they live among cliffs and broken ledges of rock in the deciduous forests, and well deserve their common name. In this region their presence is rarely suspected except by hunters or others familiar with woodland life.

Far more numerous and widely known in the Western States and throughout most of Mexico, they have adapted themselves to life under every climatic condition, from the most sun-scorched deserts of the southwest and the splendid redwood forests of the humid coastal region in northern California to the tropical lowlands farther south.

They live nearly everywhere on the mountain slopes, even to timber-line at 13,800 feet on Mount Orizaba. They thrive in an extraordinary variety of situations, not only where they may find shelter among rocks, but also where they must seek safety in nests made on the surface of the ground or in burrows dug by themselves. They are prolific animals and each year have several litters containing from two to five young.

The presence of woodrats is generally indicated by accumulations of odds and ends filling the crevices of the rocks about their retreats or piled about the entrances of their burrows, such accumulations including small sticks, pieces of bark, leaves, cactus burrs, bones, stones, and any other small objects which may be found in the vicinity.

Sometimes these piles of fragments seem to be made merely for amusement or to work off surplus energy, as they form useless gatherings, such as heaps of small stones, frequently containing a bushel or more, piled on the rounded tops of small protruding boulders in open desert areas, or small heaps of sticks and other material scattered aimlessly about their haunts.

In the desert where cactuses of many kinds abound woodrats’ nests are often made at the bases of these or other thorny plants and are covered with such a protective coating of cactus burrs as to deter the most insistent enemy. In the heavy forests of northern California woodrats build huge conical nests of sticks several feet in diameter on the ground, rising to a height of five feet or more.

In southern California and elsewhere some species make great nests of sticks eight to twenty feet from the ground in live oaks and other trees. The stick-pile nests on the ground usually have several entrances, with trails leading from them, and the underground burrows usually have two or more openings.

As may be surmised from their habits, woodrats are skillful climbers, both in trees and on the rough rock walls of the cliffs they inhabit. Their only notes appear to be shrill squeaks and squeals when quarreling among themselves at night. They also express annoyance or alarm by a rapid drumming on the ground with their hind feet, just as is done by some of the hares and rabbits.

On Santa Margarita Island, in Lower California, I found the most curiously located habitations of these animals I have seen, the bulky stick nests being placed well back in the midst of a mangrove thicket growing in a tidal lagoon. At high tide the mangroves were isolated from shore by several rods of water, so that only at low tide were the rats able to go ashore. In going back and forth they followed certain lines of nearly horizontal mangrove stems, the discoloration on the bark plainly indicating the routes which finally led to dry land by little trampled roads across the muddy ground bordering the shore.

Back a little way from shore others of the same species were living in burrows guarded by orthodox stick and trash-pile nests among the cactuses.

Woodrats, especially in northern localities, gather stores of pinyon or other nuts, potatoes, corn, and any other non-perishable food available to meet the season of storms and scarcity, concealing these supplies in cavities in the nests either above or below the ground. They eat many kinds of fruits, seeds, leaves, and other parts of plants, sometimes including bark of shrubs or small trees and even cactus pads.

As a rule each nest is occupied by a single rat, but sometimes several may be found in one, and the well-worn trails that so often connect the entrances of neighboring nests bear evidence that woodrats have a social disposition. In most localities woodrats are distributed sparingly, but occasionally become so abundant in favorable places on brushy plains that colonies containing hundreds of nests may be found in limited areas. They sometimes become so plentiful about ranches as to make serious inroads on grain and other crops. They also give the Forest Service much trouble by digging up the pine seeds planted in their great reforesting nurseries.

Woodrats are mainly nocturnal in habits and appear to be extremely active throughout the night. Each morning in the vicinity of their nests the light soil shows a multitude of tracks, and in places I have seen little roads in the sand several hundred yards long which they had made by repeated trips to a feeding ground.

No sooner is a cabin built in the mountains than they move in and establish themselves under the floor, or locate a nest near by and use the house as their nocturnal resort. Throughout the night the patter of their busy feet may be heard as they race about on the floor or rustle about the roof, and often over the sleeping forms of their unwilling hosts.

Their activities are sources of mingled amusement and vexation. Small, loose articles, including table knives, forks, and spoons, vanish and all manner of trash, including horse droppings, are brought in, thus establishing their title to the cognomen of “trade rats.” If the owner of a cabin leaves it for a few days, he may find on his return that the rats have taken possession and during his absence have tried to fill it with trash of all kinds, in order to make a comfortable home for themselves.

At one cabin in the mountains of New Mexico where I lived one summer several mountain rats made free of the place and at night persistently tried to add our shoes to their nest under the floor. An hour or so after retiring we would hear our shoes scrape slowly across the floor, and in the morning they would be found stuck toe down in the broad crack where the floor ended near the wall. In the woodrat country when small articles are missed from camp it is always worth the trouble to investigate the nearest rats’ nests.

Woodrats are plentiful on the Mexican table-land, making their nests under cactuses or thorny agaves, where they are persistently hunted as game by the natives, who prize them as a special delicacy. I saw them regularly sold in the markets of the cities of San Luis Potosi and Aguas Calientes, where the method of marketing them was unique. As soon as they were dug from their nests, their lower incisors were broken off close to the jaw to render them powerless to bite, and then the rats were placed alive in a strong sack and carried to town.

The vendor would sit on a curb at the market and either kill and dress them there or shout his wares by telling every one who passed that he had “country rats; very delicious; live ones; fat ones; very delicious; very cheap.” The natives all praised their delicate flavor and one I had served me as a special courtesy was really good, tasting like young rabbit.

=THE HARVEST MOUSE= (=Reithrodontomys megalotis= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 527_)

In size, proportions, and color the harvest mice, of all our American species, most closely resembles the common house mouse. Many of them are decidedly smaller than that animal and they rarely, if ever, exceed it in size. They may be distinguished from the house mouse by their browner colors, more hairy tail and especially by a little groove which extends down the front of each upper incisor.

The mice of this group include many species and have a wide distribution ranging from Virginia, in the eastern United States, to the Pacific, and from North Dakota, Montana, and Washington southward through Mexico and Central America to northern South America.

They reach their greatest development in number and diversity of species in the region about the southern end of the Mexican table-land, where I have caught them from the tropical lowlands, near sea level, up to an altitude of 13,500 feet, at timber-line, on Mount Iztaccihuatl.

These delicately proportioned and graceful little beasts are habitants of grassy, weed-grown, and brushy locations, mainly in the open country. They are equally at home, however, in the beautiful grassy open forests of oak, pine, and firs which clothe the slopes of the great continental mountain system of Mexico and Central America.

In general they prefer comparatively dry situations, if there is sufficient moisture to produce the needed vegetation, but some species inhabit swamps and even salt and fresh water marshes. Although as a rule not very numerous, at times they are very abundant and make well-worn trails through the small vegetation in their haunts. They are active throughout the year, and in the North, like some other mice, burrow through the winter snows along the surface of the ground in search of food.

So far as man is concerned, most of the harvest mice are among the least offensive of mammals. There are exceptions, however, and, although they rarely approach habitations and as a rule take but slight toll from grain fields and meadows, yet in some areas they become so numerous as to do considerable damage.

Their food includes a great variety of seeds, small fruits and succulent matter mainly from wild plants of no economic value. They lay up stores of seeds in their nests and in little special storage places for severe or inclement weather.

Some of the species dig burrows in the ground where their nests are hidden. Most of them, however, build globular nests of grass and other vegetable matter several inches in diameter in dense grass close to the ground, or up in the midst of rank growths of weeds, or even as high as eight or ten feet from the ground in bushes and low trees.

Sometimes they take possession of convenient sites already provided, such as old woodpecker holes, cavities in fence posts, knot holes, and deserted birds’ nests, including the nests of the cactus wren and orchard oriole, which they remodel to suit themselves. Their nests are lined with fine downy material such as the pappus of the milkweed or the cattail flag, and have from one to three small openings usually located on the underside. In these neat homes they have several litters of from one to seven young each year.

Some of their bush nests three or four feet from the ground were found when I was hunting on El Mirador coffee plantation in Vera Cruz. Often on approaching them, the single occupant would dive headlong into the grassy cover below and disappear. But sometimes when disturbed they would come out and run about through the tops of the bushes, leaping from branch to branch with all the agility and graceful abandon of pigmy squirrels. Several times they were seen to stop and sit crosswise on the branches with their tails hanging straight down. When they move about among the branches they sometimes coil the tail around the twig as an opossum might, to give them a more certain hold.

While harvest mice may be seen at their nests by day, they are mainly crepuscular and nocturnal, and so retiring in habits that their presence may be entirely overlooked unless special search is made to locate them. Where found their pretty ways well repay the observer who has the patience to spend a little time with them.

=THE GRASSHOPPER MOUSE= (=Onychomys leucogaster= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 527_)

The grasshopper mice are notable for the delicate coloring and velvety quality of their fur. While closely resembling some of the white-footed mice, they may readily be distinguished from them by more robust form, short, thick tail, and the character of the fur.

Only two species, each with numerous geographic races, are known and both are peculiar to North America. Characteristic animals of the arid and semi-arid treeless plains, plateaus, and foothills of the West, their known range extends from Minnesota and Kansas west to the Cascades and to the Pacific coast of southern California, and in the North, from the plains of the Saskatchewan southward to San Luis Potosi, on the tableland of Mexico.

Some races live on the grassy plains west of the Mississippi, but the majority prefer the looser soil and sandy areas of the more arid Great Basin and the even more desert Southwest, where the vegetation is characterized by a scattered growth of woody plants, including many species of cactuses, yuccas, agaves, sagebrush, greasewood, mesquites, acacias, and other picturesque types.

Like other small mammals of the open plains, the grasshopper mice live in burrows. When opportunity offers they evade the labor of digging these for themselves by occupying the deserted holes of mice, kangaroo rats, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, badgers, and other animals. In these retreats they have nests of soft vegetable matter and each season bring forth several litters containing from two to six young.

They are active throughout the year, but nothing appears to be known as to the kind and amount of stores they lay up for winter use. As many live far enough north to experience a long period of cold, with snow covering the earth, there is little doubt that they exercise the same provision in providing stores to meet the need as do many other small mammals.

Many species of mice eat insects or meat and even on occasion devour one of their own kind. The grasshopper mice go far beyond this and are often not only as fierce flesh eaters as real carnivores, but make their diet, at least during the summer season, mainly of insects and other small invertebrates. Their bill of fare includes a miscellaneous assortment of several species of mice, including their own kind caught in traps, small dead birds, lizards, frogs, cutworms, scorpions, mole crickets, ordinary crickets, grasshoppers, moths, flies, and beetles, including the “potato bug.”

In addition they eat many kinds of seeds, fruit, and other vegetable matter. Where obtainable, grasshoppers are one of their favorite foods, and from this they receive their common name. In Colorado, from their fondness for scorpions, they are sometimes called “scorpion mice.”

Vernon Bailey’s observations of a grasshopper mouse he had in captivity are illuminating as to their habits, and indicate that their presence in numbers about cultivated land must be of distinct economic value. When undisturbed and well fed the captive was entirely nocturnal, sleeping all day and becoming very active at night. While usually quiet, sometimes jumping with all his force he tried furiously to escape from his small prison box. His favorite food consisted of crickets, grasshoppers ranking next. Among other things he ate were a black beetle, ladybirds, a potato beetle, spiders, bugs, and dragon flies.

In feeding he sat upright on his haunches and held the insects in his front paws, eating them head first. Large grasshoppers, their tails resting on the ground, were held head up by a paw on each shoulder. A grasshopper would sometimes kick so vigorously as to tip the mouse off its balance, but was never relinquished until decapitated.

The mouse promptly killed and ate a small frog placed in his box and was expert at catching flies. He ate many kinds of insects, including a live wasp, but appeared terror-stricken if a few ants were put in with him. When a dozen or more crickets and grasshoppers were put into his box at the same time he at once proceeded to bite off all their heads before beginning to feast upon them.

A dead white-footed mouse was dropped in and “he pounced upon it like a cat, caught it by the side of the head near the ear, and began biting it with all the ferocity of a coon dog.” The bones could be heard cracking and after the little beast appeared satisfied that his prey was really dead he ceased worrying it and an examination showed that he had bitten through its skull deep into the brain. Afterward he tore off and ate fragments of flesh from its head, neck, and shoulders. The ferocious certainty with which he seized the white-footed mouse by the head and bit through its skull indicated that in relation to small mammals he, probably like all his kind, had the predatory instincts and habits of the carnivores.

One morning he ate 12 crickets and a spider in seven minutes and during a single day devoured 53 insects--2 beetles, 8 grasshoppers, 28 crickets, and 15 flies--and appeared ready to take more.

Oddly enough, this grasshopper mouse, so fierce toward small game, never offered to bite when captured or when handled freely, but continued throughout his captivity to have the same friendly confidence in his captor. Others caught in various parts of their range have shown the same characteristics.

At night, especially early in the evening, grasshopper mice utter a fine shrill whistling call note. This habit appears peculiar to them among all the mice and may be likened to that of many of the large beasts of prey in uttering their hunting call as they sally forth for the night’s foray.

=THE WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE= (=Peromyscus leucopus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 530_)

Few of our smaller wild mammals are so generally known as the white-footed mice. Usually a little larger and proportionately shorter bodied than the house mice, they may at once be distinguished from them by the contrast between the delicate shades of fawn color, brown, or gray of the upper parts of the body, and the snowy white feet and under parts. Like other members of the genus, they have cheek pouches inside the mouth for gathering and carrying food to their stores.

Their exceedingly quick and graceful movements and their beauty of form and color would make them generally attractive were it not for the prejudice against all their kind resulting from the offensive ways of the house mouse.

Mice of the genus Peromyscus, to which the white-footed mice belong, are peculiar to North and South America and include more species and geographic races than any other American genus of mammals. The white-footed mice are limited to North America. Readily responsive to the influences of environment, they have developed numerous species and a large number of geographic races.

These are spread over most of the continent from the northern limit of trees to the tropical shores of Yucatan. One form has the distinction of living up to an altitude of from 15,000 to 16,000 feet on Mount Orizaba, Mexico, where I found its tracks in the volcanic ashes at the extreme limit of vegetation. This is the highest record for any North American mammal.

White-footed mice are active throughout the year and thrive in every variety of situation. In winter from the Northern States to the Arctic circle the snowshoer traversing the forest will note their lace-work patterns of tiny tracks leading across the snow from log to log or tree to tree. At sunrise on the southwestern deserts their tracks made during the night often form a fine network in the dust, but disappear with the first breath of the morning breeze.

They not only live everywhere in the wilderness, but are prompt to swarm about camps and other habitations, where they make free with the food supplies. Few frequenters of forest camps in the Northern States and Canada have failed to see the bright eyes of these pretty little animals peering at them from some crevice, or the mice scurrying along the log wall like little squirrels.

They are industrious workers and once in a cabin quickly locate some cozy nook in a box or other secluded place to construct a warm nest of any soft fibrous vegetable material available. This completed, they set busily at work nights to raid the food supply of the owner and hide it in suitable storage places, such as a crevice among boxes, an old shoe or a pocket in a garment hung on the wall. Their depredations usually cause so much exasperation that the camper overlooks the grace and beauty of his visitors and makes every effort to destroy them. If the occupants of such camps would keep their supplies in mouse-proof containers and would then feed their woodland friends, they would find them quickly responsive and most attractive guests.

In their native haunts these mice have habits varying with varying conditions. On brushy plains they burrow in the ground, while in the woods they sometimes burrow under rocks, stumps, and logs, or live in hollows in stumps and trees. As nimble in climbing as squirrels, many live in hollow trees sometimes more than fifty feet above the ground.

That our inability to see at night prevents more than an occasional glimpse at the doings of the small animals which often swarm all about us was impressed on me at one of my camps in the desert of Lower California. My blankets were spread under a small leafless tree growing near the base of a rocky ledge, in the crevices of which many relatives of the white-footed mice were living. The first morning in camp I awoke as the sky began to pale and color with the approach of day. The dry branches of the tree a few feet overhead became sharply silhouetted against the sky, revealing several of the mice running up and down them and leaping from twig to twig with all the active grace of tiny squirrels.

The mice appeared to be racing about in pure playful enjoyment of the exercise, and when the light had increased sufficiently to render objects on the ground distinct they suddenly ran down the tree trunk and vanished in a crevice in the rocks. This game was repeated on several succeeding mornings and is no doubt commonly indulged in where conditions are favorable.

White-footed mice feed mainly on many kinds of seeds and nuts and vary this diet with snails, insects, and sometimes with the flesh of dead birds or other mice. As they do not hibernate they lay up abundant stores of grain and seeds of many kinds in addition to a variety of nuts, as acorns, beech nuts, pine nuts, maple seeds, and others, according to the locality. The stores are hidden in hollows in logs, stumps, trees, or in the ground. When in captivity they have shown themselves expert in catching flies, sometimes capturing them with their teeth and again with their front paws used with all the dexterity of little hands.