aits, and have been known to feed on flesh of
carcasses, even on one of the pilot black snake which is a predator on
the rat.

Woodrats are born blind, naked, and helpless, at a weight approximately
four per cent of the adult female's. They gain at a rate of at least 1.5
grams per day in the first two months. When they have reached a weight
of 100 grams, the gain averages somewhat less than one gram per day, but
individual variation is great. Males gain more rapidly than females,
especially in the later stages of growth, as adult weight is greater by
approximately one-fourth in the male. Some individuals grow to maximum
adult size at an age of one year. Unusually large individuals are not
necessarily those that are unusually old. Longevity is greater in
woodrats than in most smaller rodents. One female of adult size when
first trapped was last captured 991 days later when she must have been
well over three years old, and others are known to have survived more
than two years even though populations were shrinking so that few of the
rats were able to survive for their normal life span.

_Literature Cited_

CRABB, W. D.

1941. Food habits of the prairie spotted skunk in southeastern Iowa.
Jour. Mamm., 22:349-364.

FITCH, H. S.

1947. Predation by owls in the Sierran foothills of California. Condor,
49:137-151.

RAINEY, D. G.

1956. Eastern woodrat, Neotoma floridana: natural history and ecology.
Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 8: No. 10, in press.

_Transmitted March 12, 1956._

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ecological Observations on the
Woodrat, Neotoma floridana, by Henry S. Fitch and Dennis G. Rainey

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ECOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS--WOODRAT ***

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