33^ Rats and tJie Balance of Nature. [Sess. 



nest. We never kill owls here, but as they destroyed all the 

 young pigeons in the dovecot, they eventually had to be ejected." 



"Wliat is the practical application of all this ? Firsi, as to 

 the cause of the increase of rats, so generally complained 

 of. There may be minor causes which have contributed to 

 it, but I affirm that there are three outstanding causes which 

 ought to be patent to every thoughtful observer. (1.) There 

 is the modern improvement in our sanitary conditions in towns, 

 and even farm-steadings. There is nothing which the rat finds 

 more uncongenial to his comfort than sewer-pipes, with an 

 occasional Buchan trap, and the introduction of cement, now 

 being largely used for barn-floors, byres, and stable-yards. 

 (2.) Another cause contributing to the increase of the rat 

 pest is the remarkable dry summers and open winters ex- 

 perienced in this country during the last few years. Arising 

 out of this, we have had heavy crops, and a superabundance 

 of grain of all kinds left upon the stubble-fields, which no 

 efforts of the husbandman could utilise without having recourse 

 to the sickle. The effect of this exceptionally open winter, with 

 abundance of food, has been to increase the number of rats. 

 Like rabbits, as every schoolboy knows, its breeding-season is 

 abridged or prolonged very much according to the external con- 

 ditions in which it exists. (3.) There is, finally, the operation 

 of the Ground Game Act, which, while pressing more heavily 

 upon hares and rabbits, has operated in an adverse direction 

 upon rats. Farmers may be disposed to question this, but it 

 is nevertheless a truth which, in view of the interests involved, 

 must be stated — viz., that since the passing of the Act in 

 question, they have been much more zealous in killing hares 

 and rabbits than they have been in the destruction of rats. 

 Before the passing of the Ground Game Act, farmers and their 

 servants were uniformly vigilant in killing rats as time and 

 opportunity offered. Now I am libelling no one when I affirm 

 that that vigilance has up till lately been very generally 

 relaxed. 



Second, as to the remedy. In view of the danger of water 

 being poisoned, and of dogs being destroyed, by the administra- 

 tion of poison, I am reluctant to recommend its use, altogether 

 apart from the question as to its illegality when openly exposed. 

 I say nothing of the intolerable and unhealthy smell emitted 



