NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



the brown rat (Mus norvegicus), black rat (Mus 

 rattus), and house mouse (Mus domesticus). 



The loss they occasion to man the world over is 

 incalculable. The produce consumed in South Africa 

 alone by rodent animals would feed a large army of 

 men and horses. They prey upon all forms of good 

 and useful vegetation. They attack the forests, 

 pasturage, growing and stacked corn, grain in bags, 

 seeds, root crops (both in the ground and barn), young 

 trees and shrubs, buds, fruit, and even flowers. Any- 

 thing and everything of an edible nature to man and 

 his domestic animals they gnaw and devour. Not 

 content with these crimes, they overrun his dwellings 

 and stores, nibbling, tearing, and wasting in their 

 wantonness. Some kinds of birds take fruit or grain 

 now and then from man, but they, with but few 

 exceptions, render sterling service for it. 



The rat and mouse, on the contrary, are out-and- 

 out pests — vermin of the purest water. They con- 

 stitute a steady and continuous drain upon mankind. 

 The quantity of good grain eaten by rats and mice 

 in the various countries of the world would be sufficient 

 to feed at least fifty million people. Another fifty 

 millions could be sustained on the other kinds of 

 foodstuffs eaten by these ravagers of the produce of 

 man's labour. 



Some of the rodents are active carriers of diseases. 

 For instance, the rat harbours a flea which can inoculate 

 man with bubonic plague. The brown rat visits the 

 garbage barrels, privies, sick chambers, cesspools, 

 drains, etc., and gets smothered with the germs of 



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