ear, with diabolical attributes and a Satanic
voice. However that may be, you cannot induce a Rat to leave his hut
after dark,--nor, indeed, will you find many Jerseymen, though of a
higher order of intelligence, who will brave the supernatural terrors of
the gloomy forest at night, unless secure in the strength of numbers."

The Pine Rat, in his vocation as a picker-up of every unconsidered
trifle, is an adept at charcoal-burning, on the sly. The business of
legitimate charcoal-manufacture is also largely practised in the Pines,
although the growing value of wood interferes sadly with the coalers.
Here and there, however, a few acres are marked out every year for
charring, and the coal-pits are established in the clearing made by
felling the trees. The "coaling," as it is technically termed, is an
assemblage of "pits," or piles of wood, conical in form, and about ten
feet in height by twenty in diameter. The wood is cut in equal lengths,
and is piled three or four tiers high, each log resting on the end of
that below it, and inclining slightly inwards. An opening is left in the
centre of the pile, serving as a chimney; and the exterior is overlaid
with strips of turf, called "floats," which form an almost air-tight
covering. When the pile is overlaid, fire is set at various small
apertures in the sides, and when the whole "pit" is fairly burning, the
chimney is closed, in order to prevent too rapid combustion, and the
whole pile is slowly converted into charcoal. The application of the
term "pit" to these piles is worthy of remark. It is due, of course,
to the fact, that for centuries it was customary to burn charcoal in
excavated pits, until it was discovered that gradual combustion could be
as well secured by another and less tedious method.

The Pine Rat glories in his surreptitious coal-pits. In secluded
portions of the forest, he may continually be discovered pottering over
a "coaling," for which he has stolen the wood. This, indeed, is his only
handicraft,--the single labor to which he condescends or is equal. Two
or three men sometimes band together and build themselves huts after
the curious fashion peculiar to the Rat, namely, by piling sticks or
branches in a slope on each side of some tall pine, so that a wigwam,
with the trunk of the tree in the centre, is constructed. Inside this
triangular shelter--the idea of which was probably borrowed from the
Indians--the Pine Rat ensconces himself with his whiskey-bo