334 



THE RODENTS OR GNAWING ANIMALS. 



black specimens, white ones with red eyes (true albi- 

 nos), dull or pied individuals, also occur. The lat- 

 ter are either black and white, or gray and white, 

 and nearly always the head, neck, shoulders and 

 fore-feet, together with a wider or narrower stripe on 

 the back, are black or gray, the rest being white. 

 The Brown Rat a It ' s very probable that the Brown 



Formidable Rat came to us from some portion 

 Pest. f Asia, namely, India or Persia. 



Pallas is the first to describe the Brown Rat as an 

 European animal and says that it invaded Europe 

 in immense hordes in the autumn of 1727 after an 

 earthquake, coming from the Caspian country. At 

 that time it crossed the Volga at Astrakhan in enor- 

 mous numbers and rapidly spread westward. Nearly 

 at the same time, namely in 1732, it was conveyed 

 to England from East India in ships, and thence it 

 began its tour over the world. In eastern Prussia 

 it appeared in 1750, in Paris in 1753, in Germany it 

 was common in 1780; in Switzerland it has been 

 known since 1809, and in Denmark it gained a foot- 

 hold at about the same time. In 1755 it was carried 

 to North America and there also it multiplied at a 

 wonderfully rapid rate; still it had not spread much 

 farther than Kingston in Upper Canada in 1825, and 

 more recently still it had not reached the regions 

 about the upper Missouri. It is distributed, how- 

 ever, over all the islands of the Pacific, even the very 

 remotest and most solitary of them. Being larger 

 and stronger than the Black Rat, it invades the 

 localities where the latter formerly lived in peace, 

 and its numbers are on the increase, as those of the 

 latter diminish. 



Similar Habits of The two species agree so closely as 

 the Brown and to their mode of life and habits that 



Black Rats. the description of one almost ex- 

 actly fits the other. If it be noted that the Brown 

 Rat settles more in the lower parts of buildings, 

 especially in damp cellars and vaults, in sewers, 

 sluices, cess-pools, drains, and along the banks of 

 rivers, while the Black Rat prefers the upper part 

 of the house, corn-lofts, garrets, etc., little will be 

 left that is not a common attribute of both. Both 

 species of this vermin inhabit all available apart- 

 ments of a human habitation and all imaginable 

 places holding out a promise of food. They can be' 

 found from the cellar to the garret, from the draw- 

 ing-room to the closet, and in both palace and hovel. 

 Neither fence nor wall, neither door nor lock insures 

 protection from them; where there is no ready-made 

 way they open one ; they gnaw and dig passages 

 through the strongest oaken timber or the thickest 

 wall. Only when one sinks foundation walls deep 

 into the ground, closes all crevices between the 

 stones with hard cement and takes the precaution of 

 putting a layer of broken glass between the stones 

 is a building tolerably safe from their intrusion. 



Vicious Pro- And yet the destruction of dwell- 

 pensities of the ings, the abominable undermining 



Brown Rat. f anc j digging through walls, is the 

 smallest of the misdeeds of which the Rats are 

 guilty. The damage the}- cause by their feeding is 

 much more considerable; anything eatable is accept- 

 able to them. Man eats nothing that Rats will not 

 partake of, and they do not stop short at eating, 

 but go further and share many of his beverages. 

 Were they to become drunk on alcoholic liquors 

 they could be charged with helping to consume all 

 articles of food and drink of which mankind makes 

 use. Not contented with so multifarious a bill of 

 fare, the Rats greedily attack other substances, not 



sparing living creatures. The foulest offal of the 

 domestic economy is occasionally eaten by Rats, 

 and decomposing carcasses are acceptable to some 

 of them. They eat leather and horn, grain and the 

 bark of trees; no imaginable vegetable substance 

 comes amiss and what they cannot eat they gnaw 

 and destroy. Sometimes they commit serious dep- 

 redations in plantations of sugar-cane and coffee. 

 There are also authenticated cases on record where 

 the}- have attacked and attempted to devour small 

 children, and every farmer knows how they prey 

 upon domestic animals. They eat holes into the 

 bodies of very fat Pigs; they eat the webs between 

 the toes of closely penned-in Geese; they drag 

 young Ducklings into the water and drown them. 

 Hagenback, the dealer in animals, had three young 

 African Elephants killed by them, the Rats gnaw- 

 ing through the soles of those powerful animals. 



Great Audacity When they abnormally multiply in a 

 of the Rat locality they become very formid- 

 Family. able, and there are places where they 



appear in numbers which almost exceed belief. In 

 Paris sixteen thousand Rats were killed in four 

 weeks in a single slaughter-house, and in a place for 

 flaying dead animals near the same city they de- 

 voured thirty-five Horses' carcasses to the bones in 

 a single night. As soon as they perceive that Man 

 is helpless against them their audacity increases 

 amazingly. Las Casas tells us that on the 27th of 

 June, 1816, Napoleon and his companions on St. 

 Helena were left without breakfast, as the Rats had 

 invaded the kitchen on the preceding night and de- 

 voured everything. They existed there in great num- 

 bers and were vicious and exceedingly impudent. 

 It usually took them but a few days to gnaw through 

 the walls and planks of the slightly-built houses of 

 the Emperor. During meals they entered the din- 

 ing-room and at the conclusion of dinner a regular 

 war was waged against them. The Emperor's at- 

 tendants had to abandon the keeping of poultry, as 

 the Rats would eat the fowls. They even succeeded 

 in stealing the poultry from the trees on which they 

 perched during the night. In the large depots or 

 repositories of merchandise on the coasts of remote 

 countries they usually make a lodgment coinci- 

 dently with the removal of goods from the trading- 

 ships, and are a grievous nuisance, frequently caus- 

 ing serious damage. All travelers, and especially 

 collectors, complain that many objects, some of 

 them very rare and obtained with great pains, are 

 destroyed by these pests. How effectually they 

 disturb one's sleep at night by their savage conflicts 

 and noisy scamperings over the ground, the walls 

 and the roofs, is well known by every one. 

 Rats a Source of Sailors, particularly, are badly off in 



Annoyance on this respect, for there is no ship 

 Shipboard. without Rats. On old vessels they 

 cannot be exterminated, and of new ones they take 

 possession when the first cargo is brought on board. 

 On long voyages, especially when they have enough 

 to eat, they increase considerably, and then one can 

 scarcely endure life on board. When Kane's ship 

 was frozen near the 80th parallel of north latitude 

 on his arctic voyage, the Rats increased so prodig- 

 iously that they caused grievous damage. 



The Rats are experts in all physical exercises. 

 They run quickly, climb excellently, even up toler- 

 ably smooth walls, swim in masterly fashion, jump 

 far and with precision, and dig fairly well, though 

 they do not exhibit much endurance in the last 

 accomplishment. The stronger Brown Rat in all 



