Northern Observations of Inland Birds 59 



rather evolves itself into one of discretion — are we to 

 persecute a useful species on account of the occasional 

 sins of that species, or are we to let Nature find her own 

 balance ? I believe always in punishing the offender 

 caught in the act, but there is so much individuality in 

 birds and bests, they are so much ruled by the conditions 

 that immediately surround them, that it is manifestly 

 unfair to arrive at hard and fast rules. 



Before dismissing these three birds, mention might be 

 made of the increasingly active part they are playing as a 

 national asset in the rat war. 



The country rat, that is the big, old reprobate which 

 forsakes the barns and pigsties for the months of warmth 

 and plenty, to take up seasonable quarters in the banks 

 of some stream or in a rabbit-infested hedgerow, is a 

 matter of history, but until quite recently it was customary 

 for these rodents in thinly-peopled country districts 

 to rear their young in outlying barns or buildings of some 

 kind which afforded food and shelter. In other words, 

 though outlying adult rats have always been plentiful, 

 it was rare, until quite recently, for one to find female 

 rats rearing their young amidst surroundings usually 

 associated with brer rabbit and the longtails. At the 

 time of writing, however, I know of several coverts, 

 some four or five miles distant from any farm building, 

 which are literally over-run by rats, both young and old, 

 and the rodents can be seen daily crossing and recrossing 

 the roads in apparent indifference to occasional motorists 

 and pedestrians. 



We have not, of course, very far to look for the reason 

 for this. Owing to the rat restrictions, barns, etc., are 

 no longer the blissful paradise that they used to be for 

 mus rattus ; rat-proof buildings and rat-proof ricks have 

 forced a changed order upon the unwelcome aliens' 

 mode of life, and though the farmer has gone a long way 



