Janie Tinney, aged 5, of Little Birch,: for her question:

 Is it true that a squirrel belongs to the rat family?

Suppose you had a scrap with Gilbert Smith. Naturally you would not turn up your nose at everyone named Smith. There are so many of them that you could not possibly count them all, Gilbert may be a pest, to be sure. But this could not be true of all the Smiths. This is the way we have treated the rat, or rodent family of animals. Rats and mice are pests. Nobody likes them and for good reason. But there are plenty of other charming, handsome and friendly members of the rodent clan.

The word rodent is coined from a word meaning to gnaw. And all rodents are great gnawers. They have special teeth for the job. There are two pairs of these teeth right in front of the mouth. The rodent wears them down sharp as chisels. And they keep right on growing as he wears them down. He needs no dentist you can bet that most people wish they had such teeth:

The experts group the members of the rodent family according to these splendid teeth. If an animal has them, he is a. rodent. If he doesn’t, he isn’t. Most rodents are vegetarians. But the rats and mice have added meat to their diet, What’s more, they have invaded our property. They destroy thousands of tons of our food every year, They are certainly pests and we should destroy as many of them as possible. Hut other members of the rodent clan are our friends.

One such member has the most beautiful fur coat in the world. He is the little grey chinchilla whose native home is in the Andes Mountains. The largest of the rodents is also a South American, He is the capybara and he grows as big a s a fair‑sized pig. He and other fair‑sized rodents called pacas are considered good eating by people In South America.

Beaver, porcupines, chipmunks, gophers, prairie dogs and guinea pigs are also rodents. The prairie dog is, of course, a, ground squirrel, and naturally he is first cousin to the tree equirrel8. So the answer to the question is yes, The pretty, frisky little squirrels are rodents Which makes them first cousins to the rats.