NATURAL ENEMIES 
97 
Fly-Catching Rats 
A number of mammalia in captivity have been seen 
to capture flies, but as a rule they seem to do this very 
much as the idle house dog wiil snap at the fly circling 
about his head. A most interesting observation, how¬ 
ever, has been made by Prof. B. W. Evermann, of the 
Bureau of Fisheries in Washington. At a meeting of 
the Biological Society of Washington, held January 
7th, he gave an account of a visit in early July of 1910, 
at Kokomo, Indiana. He stopped at a hotel and was 
sitting on the piazza on the evening of his arrival. Back 
of him was a window which opened into a storeroom 
for provisions, etc. Inside the window was a lace cur¬ 
tain which hung closely, and uniformly covered the 
entire window. Happening to look at the window quite 
by accident, Professor Evermann saw a brown rat run 
back and forth on the window-sill inside. It seems that 
a large number of flies had accumulated between the 
curtain and the window, probably attracted by the light 
from outside, and the rat was engaged in catching these 
flies. 
In Professor Evermann’s words, “It was very expert. 
It would move back and forth the full length of the 
window-sill, catching such flies as it could reach. It 
would frequently stand upon its hind legs to its full 
length with its fore paws and body resting against the 
glass and move backward and forward across the win¬ 
dow. It ordinarily caught the flies with its paws, by 
raking the fly with one paw over against the other or 
