Gnawing of Water and Gas Pipes hy Hats and Mice. 153 



in situations wliere the lioles thus made had escaped detection 

 for months. 



Mr Buckland says that the want of water will kill rats in 

 a very few hours. He gives an instance of a rat dying for 

 want of water, although it had wet bread to eat; at least 

 that was the opinion of a rat-catcher whom he consulted, 

 and with whom he plainly concurred. This, if true — and 

 there seems no reason to doubt it — would explain how, even 

 when water is otherwise sparingly at hand, the thirsty 

 animals may cut through pipes to get a copious draught. It 

 might even explain the case, also quoted by Mr Buckland, of 

 rats gnawing down a breach through the entire depth of a cask 

 containing sweet wine, and drinking its contents. He thinks 

 they must have got very tipsy in the act of quenching their 

 thirst, as for two whole nights, during which the wine is 

 supposed to have lasted, strange noises were heard, to the 

 great alarm of the old lady in whose house the cask was 

 stored. In Nature, for May 1, 1879, the information is 

 given, on the authority of a distiller in Cincinnati, that 

 rats drink spirits which have been spilt on the ground or 

 left in open vessels, and in this way often become so tipsy 

 that they cannot run, and are easily caught. 



Dr Lauder Lindsay, Dr Wynter, and other writers, also 

 refer to the fact that rats get intoxicated with various drinks. 

 Thinking that if this were at all a common thing they would 

 likely be fond of sweet ale, I have made inquiries on the 

 subject at one or two of our Edinburgh brew^eries, and have 

 learned that rats are frequently seen stupefied with the beer 

 they drink. They not only drink spilt beer, but get up on 

 the tops of casks, and regale themselves at the bungholes. 

 Some brewers think that many rats become " seasoned," and 

 that it is only the novices that get drunk. Dr Wynter states 

 that lead pipes leading from beer barrels have been found 

 gnawed by thirsty rats. 



I turn now to a rather more serious matter — namely, the 

 cutting of gas-pipes by both rats and mice. A rat hole in 

 a Dutch dyke may produce alarming results, but in this 

 country an escape of gas is generally a thing of more dau'^er 

 than a rush of water from any pipe a rodent could gnaw. 



