Читать книгу New Ideas for American Boys; The Jack of All Trades - Daniel Carter Beard - Страница 36

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frequent the salt meadows, where their grass-roofed paths may be found intersecting each other everywhere. After the blunt-headed little creatures have been discovered, by uncovering their runways, you may capture them with your hand, shielded by a cloth cap.

Beware of their teeth, for they are savage biters and plucky fighters.

Meadow-rats are not climbers. Put them in a flat cage with a good wide expanse of bottom covered with sod of growing grass, the roots of which they will eagerly devour. Feed them garden vegetables, when grass roots are not available.

If you are an expert it is sometimes possible to catch chipmonks by hand. I never succeeded but once in capturing one in this manner. They will enter almost any ordinary sort of a trap, and can be best captured in that way. Set the trap near the hole known to be occupied by one of these scolding little rodents, and give your captives a roomy cage, with a dark corner for a nest. They make gentle and amusing pets. Feed them on acorns and nuts. Crack the hardest nuts for them.