Lisa Tedder, age 8, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for her question:

How did the Pack Rat get his name?

Not all the rats are sneaky characters with skinny tails. In the Western mountains there lives a fluffy brown rat with a furry tail. He builds himself a handsome castle, made of twigs. He lines his bedroom, his storeroom and even his toilet with soft grasses and shredded bark and keeps everyting spic and span. True, he is a bit mischievous    because he loves to collect things. One of his rooms is a private museum. There he puts pretty pebbles, bits of metal and lots of other little bright and shiny objects. This fellow just loves his collecting hobby.

He finds many of his pretty treasures in the wild. But his favorites are bright nails and coins, false teeth and shiny eyeglasses. The little rascal takes such things from people who visit his homeland. At night, he tippy toes around sleeping prospectors and campers    and takes this or that from their packs. That is why he is called a pack rat. However, the mischievous rascal is not really a sneaky thief. Almost always he leaves a pretty stone or something else in exchange. For this reason, some people call him the trade rat.