It is also on record that Rats have eaten their way through a live fat pig.
Rats will eat snails, and the method by which they carry them is described
by Mr. Harting,1 ‘ the Rats in question belonging to a colony which had taken
up their quarters in some new houses while in course of erection, where there
were no larders to visit. They were observed to climb the hollyhocks in the
garden, clear off several snails, bring them down in one paw, like an armful, and
run with them on three legs to their holes.’
Rats kill and eat their own species, and a recent successful method of
destroying these animals on board ship is to keep and feed several large and
powerful Rats exclusively on their own kind. These individuals are then turned
loose, and quickly destroy the majority of their own relatives.
The nest is composed of any soft material,' and the female Rat brings forth
usually from six to sixteen young- Mr. C. E . Wright tells me of an extraordinary
litter which he discovered on June i, I9° 3> at Oakley, Northamptonshire. In
investigating a mole’s fortress I found a Brown Rat’s nest containing twenty
young ones, and after further digging discovered a mole’s nest with seven young.’
A most remarkable site for a Rat’s nest is given in the -‘ Fie ld ’ :" 'On
January 19 I was making my weekly inspection of the beef-house at Devonport
when the butcher drew my attention to four squirming little Rats lying on one of
the lockers. It appears that on going to unhook a hindquarter of beef he noticed
a piece of netting sticking out of the suet on the inside of the carcass. He opened
it out a little more to see where the netting came from, and was considerably
startled when a large Rat jumped out and made off at once. A closer examination
showed that the beast had stuffed three potato-nets into the cavity between
the suet and the bone, and had there made a nest for its offspring.'
It would be possible to write a book on the.mischief caused by the Rat, and
its power of destruction has often caused the loss of many thousands of pounds
to individuals. Recently an elderly couple had invested their entire fortune,
amounting to 5,000/., in bearer shares in various companies. These they
unwisely stored in a dilapidated old hat-box, so shabby that the most experienced
burglar might easily have ignored it. Periodically either the husband or the wife
counted their treasure, and when they went in November 1904 they found nothing
but a little heap of dust. As usual Rats were the'culprits.
1 Zoologist, 1887, p. 190.
2 Audubon, the American naturalist, once lost the contents of a large portfolio of drawings by a pair of Rats which had
made their nest of his pictures. In a few days the labour of years was destroyed.
* Henry de C. Ward, Devonport (Field, January 30, 1904).
There are many ways of destroying Rats, most of them too well known
to need description.1 Where they are in large numbers in farm buildings and
hedgerows the most efficient way is to feed with soaked grain for a week or ten
days in one spot, and then when the Rats are quite accustomed to the nightly
banquet to put down strychnined wheat. This is illegal, but I have known as
many as three hundred killed in one spot in a single night. A chemist has
recently invented a poison which so completely dries up the dead bodies that no
smell is noticeable in dead Rats that have been poisoned by it. Those who
are nervous about destroying Rats in a house would do better to employ a professional
rat-catcher, and to take the risk of his possible dishonesty by leaving a
few to furnish a future job. This trick of leaving Rats or even turning them
down is a common one, as the Plague Commissioners in Bombay recently ascertained.
Rats are certainly a danger to health, and it is well known that they
disseminate the microbes of various diseases. A very effective method of destroying
Rats is practised in the great sewers of Paris. A naked electric wire is run
through their haunts, suspended about six inches above the ground, and on this
pieces of horseflesh are firmly fixed at intervals of twelve inches. This wire is
attached to the electric main and a power current runs through it. The Rats
in reaching for the flesh place their paws on the wire and are instantly electrocuted.
The late Duke of Beaufort used to say that the two best sports in the world
were fox-hunting and ratting, and that ratting was a very good second. Certainly
there is some sport in witnessing the respective courage and quickness of the
highly trained terriers doing their deadly work upon the small though none the
less gallant Rats. One sportsman, who makes a speciality-of this form of hunting,
places a terrier at each end of a corn-stack, turns in his ferrets, and then goes
away for an hour and smokes his pipe. On his return he will find his dogs
each with a pile of dead Rats carefully arranged for his inspection.
The most remarkable statistics of Rat killing are given by Lord Gifford, who
lives at Old Park, Chichester: ‘ I have resided here nearly five years, and found
this estate of about 2,000 acres infested with Rats. My men and self set to work
1 A very useful book on destroying Rats is that by Ike Matthews, a professional Rat-catcher of great experience. It is
called The Revelations o f a Rat-catcher. A Rat caught in a gin frequently gnaws off its own leg, and so gets free. Less
intelligent animals submit quietly to their fate. For various methods of destroying Rats see the Vermin o f the Farm, by J. E.
Harting, pp. 6-9. Colonel Hanger in 1814 minutely described the use of box or hutch traps, and they are still a most
excellent method of destroying vermin. The Universal Directory, by Robert Smith, is another good book on the subject,
but the most recent publications are the Revelations o f a Professional Rat-catcher, by Ike Matthews (1898); Studies in the
A rt o f Rat-catching, by H. C. Barkley; and The R at: its History and Destructive Character, by James Rodwell.