LESSON XLVIII. THE GNAWERS.[89] “And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling, And out of the homes the rats came tumbling: Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers!” --R. BROWNING, _Pied Piper_. In our chapter on the whales we have given examples of the fourth in our list of the mammalian orders. The manatee stood as the representative of the next named order, that of the sirenia. Then came the order of the insect-eaters, or insectivora, and little Mr. Talpa, the mole, was described, though perhaps he is not more interesting than his relations, the shrews and the hedgehogs. The seventh order in our list is that of the wing-handed creatures, which is occupied entirely by the bats, with their first cousins, the vampires and flying foxes. These animals might have been set with the edentata, if they had not indulged in the peculiarity of wings. Our eighth order is the rodentia, or gnawers. No order of animals is better known, or has more common examples. Hark! in the stillness of the house at night you may hear a rush and a scuttle through the walls, or a fine nibble in a corner; these sounds proclaim the presence of two very unpopular rodents, the rat and the mouse. As I was sitting one day last summer in the shelter of a great rock, a little animal appeared from a maple wood some hundred yards distant, and with long hops came over the hillside towards me. When about thirty yards from me, he stopped--he had just discovered me. This was our most beautiful rodent, the large gray squirrel. I concluded that bright as his eyes are he could not see so far as I could, or he would have noticed me when he came out of the wood. A little while after, as I still sat silent and motionless, another beautiful rodent came from an adjacent tree, and, deceived by my stillness and the color of my linen gown, he came and sat down on the hem of the gown, and holding himself erect on his haunches began to eat a nut. This last was the pretty chipmunk, wearing a reddish coat, and having black velvet stripes down his back. In introducing these four animals, I have already indicated the creatures to be found in the order of rodents, or gnawers. One of its most famous and ancient members, the beaver, we have already described in a chapter by himself. The order of gnawers is one of the most extensive of the mammalian class. All of its members are small, or of moderate size. They are distinguished by having only two kinds of teeth, incisors, or cutting teeth, and molars, or grinding teeth.