rnative nest among nearby boulders,
to use when temperature was unendurable beneath the metal.

The rat itself, the stored food, and other details of its home life,
could be observed with a minimum of disturbance by raising one side of
the metal strip momentarily, then carefully lowering it into place. The
following observations made in the summer and autumn of 1948 give some
idea of the range of food plants stored at any one time and the change
as the season progresses.

July 12: Bundles of leaves of carrion-flower (_Smilax
herbacea_); 15 green pods of honey locust (_Gleditsia
triacanthos_) with seeds eaten out; several green fruits of
osage orange (_Maclura pomifera_), and several seeds of
coffee-tree (_Gymnocladus dioica_).

July 24: Bundles of green leaves of osage orange and
carrion-flower; many pods of honey locust.

August 30: Three large clusters of the fruits of pokeberry
(_Phytolacca americana_).

October 20: Many small clusters of grapes (_Vitis vulpina_)
judged to weigh perhaps one pound in all; several old pods
of coffee-tree and a few berries of dogwood (_Cornus
Drummondi_) and of pokeberry; a pile of small acorns of
chinquapin oak (_Quercus prinoides_); dry seed heads of
grass (_Bromus inermis_ and _B. japonicus_).

December 22: Many twigs of bittersweet (_Celastrus
scandens_) with fruits still attached; several seed heads of
sunflower (_Helianthus annuus_); a few acorns of chinquapin
oak; fragments of the fruit of osage orange; cured bundles
of trefoil (_Desmodium glutinosum_), carrion-flower, and
tickle grass (_Panicum capillare_).

Although the eastern woodrat is relatively unspecialized in its feeding
habits, a few species of favored food plants probably make up the
greater part of its diet. In northeastern Kansas, at present, osage
orange probably is by far the most important single species. Despite the
fact that its aromatic leaves and fruits are somewhat repellent to
insects and some other animals, they are well liked by woodrats, and
provide a year-round food supply to those individuals having houses in
or near the trees. Honey locust similarly provides thorny shelter for
house sites, while the foliage, the seeds, and the bark of twigs and
trunks are eaten. In houses that are situated near honey locusts, the
large, heavy seed pods are sometimes stored by the hundreds. Old pods
are oft