238 THE RAT. 



part of its history is, that it has nearly worried every individual of 

 the original rat of Great Britain. So scarce have these last-men- 

 tioned animals become, that in all my life I have never seen but 

 one single solitary specimen. It was sent, some years ago, to Nos- 

 tell Priory in a cage from Bristol ; and I received an invitation from 

 Mr Arthur Strickland, who was on a visit there, to go and see it 

 Whilst I was looking at the little native prisoner in its cage, I could 

 not help exclaiming, "Poor 'injured Briton ! hard, indeed, has been 

 the fate of thy family ! in another generation, at farthest, it will pro- 

 bably sink down to the dust for ever ! " 



Vain would be an attempt to trace the progress of the stranger 

 rat through England's wide domain, as the old people now alive 

 can tell nothing of its coming amongst them. No part of the 

 country is free from its baneful presence : the fold and the field, the 

 street and the stable, the ground and the garret, all bear undoubted 

 testimony to its ubiquity and to its forbidding habits. After dining 

 on carrion in the filthiest sink, it will often manage to sup on the 

 choicest dainties of the larder, where, like Celaeno of old, " vestigia 

 fada relinquit" We may now consider it saddled upon us for ever. 

 Hercules himself, could he return to earth, would have his hands 

 full were he to attempt to drive this harpy back again to Stymphalus. 

 It were loss of time to dwell on its fecundity. Let anybody trace 

 its movements in the cellar, the dairy, the outhouse, and the barn, and 

 he will be able to form some notion of the number of hungry mouths 

 which we have to fill. Nine or ten young ones at a time, twice or 

 thrice during the year, are an enormous increase, and must naturally 

 recall to our minds one of the many plagues which formerly deso- 

 lated the fertile land of Egypt. In the summer months it will take 

 off to the fields, and rear its young amongst the weeds which grow 

 in the hedgerows ; plundering, for their support, the birds' nests with 

 a ferocity scarcely conceivable in so small an animal. 



Man has invented various instruments for its destruction; and 

 what with these, and with poison, added to the occasional assistance 

 which he receives from his auxiliaries, the cat, the dog, the owl, the 

 weasel, the ferret, and the foumart, he is enabled in some degree to 

 thin its numbers, and to check its depredations. There are some 

 localities, however, from which it may be effectually ousted, provided 



