BY E. PALMER, M.L.A. 197 
sixty years three have been known as rat years. These were 
1826, 1835, and 1879. On the last occasion, fields of grain 
were eaten up in a few hours as if by a flight of locusts. A 
reward of one rupee, reduced at a later period to half a rupee, 
was offered for every hundred dead rats, and it was estimated 
that not fewer than 1,768,000 rats were killed and paid for. 
Although the people were the sufferers, popular superstition 
does not seem to have approved of this slaughter, for reports 
were spread that the rats were the spirits of those who died in 
the famine of 1876-7, and the people refused at last to partici- 
pate in the efforts made for their extermination. Locusts and 
famines have proved scarcely less formidable to the agricultu- 
ralists of ‘ Ahmednugger’ than rats.” 
The question arises: What causes contributed to the produc- 
tion of such a sudden development of animal life, and as suddenly 
almost to its extinction? The generally received opinion is that 
the increase of rats was due to congenial surroundings, shelter 
in the natural cracks of the plains, exuberant herbage and an 
unstocked country—coupled with a then scarcity of their 
natural enemies; even the tribes of blacks* had withdrawn 
from the plain country and occupied only the mountainous 
parts, hundreds of miles away. This may account for the rapid 
increase of the rats on the Flinders River ; but the opposite reason 
is given in the case of the rat plague in Ahmednugger— 
where, if the rain does not come in June, or fails—the rats 
become excessively numerous, and spread over the country. 
The two reasons point to similar conclusions, though from 
opposite views. 
Their disappearance is not so much a mystery, and can be 
accounted for by various considerations. Increase of their natural 
* Where marsupials have increased beyond nature’s limits, it can be 
shown that this is due to the fact that the disturbing influences of the 
Aborigines and dingo having been removed, the race has room to develop 
unchecked. 
