Predatory animals, such as dogs, cats, skunks, foxes and weasels.
Predatory birds: hawks, eagles and owls.
Destructive elements: forest fires, rain, snow and sleet.
Now, is it not a wonder that any rabbits remain alive in Pennsylvania? But they are there. They refuse to be exterminated. Half of them annually outwit all their enemies—smart as they are; they avoid death by hunger and cold, and they go on breeding in defiance of wild men, beasts and birds. Is it not wonderful— the mentality of the gray rabbit? Again we say—the wild animal must think or die.
In recognizing man's protection and friendship, the rabbit is as quick on the draw as the gray squirrel. In our Zoological Park where we constantly kill hunting cats in order that our little wild neighbors, the rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks may live, the rabbits live literally in our midst. They hang around the Administration Building, rear and front, as if they owned it; and one evening at sunset I came near stepping out upon a pair that were roosting on the official door-mat on the porch. There are times when they seem annoyed by the passage of automobiles over the service road.
To keep hungry rabbits from barking your young apple trees in midwinter, spend a dollar or two in buying two or three bushels of corn expressly for them.
The sentry system of the Prairie-"Dog" in guarding "towns" is very nearly perfect. A warning chatter quickly sends every "dog" scurrying to the mouth of its hole, ready for the dive to safety far below. No! the prairie-"dog," rattlesnake and burrowing owl emphatically do NOT dwell together in peace and harmony in the burrow of the "dog." The rodent hates both these interloping enemies, and carefully avoids them. The pocket gopher does his migrating and prospecting at night, when his enemies are asleep. The gray squirrel builds for itself a summer nest of leaves. At the real beginning of winter the prairie-"dog" tightly plugs up with moist earth the mouth of his burrow; and he packs it with his nose. The round-tailed muskrat of Florida (Neofiber alleni) builds a little platform over the water of the marsh in which it lives, on which it builds its nest high and dry. The Hudsonian red squirrel will bark and scold at a human intruder for half an hour.
In Chapter IV I have already accorded the beaver a place with the most intelligent animals of the world. The books that have been written concerning that species have been amply justified. It is, however, impossible to refuse this important animal a place in any chapter devoted to the mental traits of rodents, and I deem it fitting to record here our latest experience with this remarkable species.
Our Last Beaver Experiment. In the autumn of 1921 we emptied and cleaned out our Beaver Pond. The old house originally built by the beavers in the centre of the pond, was for sanitary reasons entirely removed. Work on the pond was not finished until about October 25; and the beavers had no house.
It seemed to me a physical impossibility for the beavers to begin a new house at that late date and unassisted finish it by the beginning of winter. One beaver had escaped, and for the remaining three such a task would be beyond their powers. I decided to give them a helping hand, provided they would accept it, by providing them with a wooden house, which they might if they chose, entirely surround and snugly cover with mud and sticks.