NATURAL HISTORY'. 117 



" Our natures do pursue, 



Like rats that ravine down their proper bane, 

 A thirsty evil, and -when we drink, we die." SHAKSPERE. 



kis food, by moving his jaws incessantly and without pausing. They move ten 

 times faster than the jaws of a rabbit. When a rat drinks, he laps up the fluid like 

 a dog. A rat generally tastes his food with his tongue previous to eating it. "When 

 sleeping, the rat coils himself up into a ball, and places his nose down between his 

 hind legs ; his tail is curled up round the outside of the body, no part of him 

 projecting but his two delicate ears, which are beautifully adapted for catching the 

 least sound. 



364. Why may black rats be most securely caught by means of a 

 wire snare fixed on a beam or rafter? 



Because the black rat does not frequent low haunts, such as 

 cellars, pigsties, &c. ; nor does he burrow and run into holes, bu* lives 

 chiefly in the ceilings and wainscoats of houses, and under rafters 

 and beams. The snare alluded to, therefore, favouring their 

 peculiar habits, is better calculated to secure them than any other 

 contrivance. 



365. WTiy is the tail of the rat so long and perfectly formed ? 



Because it performs an important part in the animal's progress, 

 becoming a sort of hand by means of which he is enabled to crawl 

 along the tops of railings and along narrow ledges of walls, balancing 

 himself by it or entwining it round the projecting portions of the diffi- 

 cult passages along which his course lies. By means of it, too, he 

 is enabled to spring up heights otherwise inaccessible, using it on 

 these occasions as a lever, or rather a projectile spring. 



366. Why does the disappearance of the black rat prove the 

 greater solidity and cleanliness of our modern habitations? 



Because the black rat was never much of a city rat, nor resorted 

 to houses built of masonry, and roofed with tiles or slates. But 

 it frequented thatched houses with boarded or plastered walls, and 

 became numerous ir dwellings where the rooms were uncleanly. 

 They were, in fact, the scavengers of dirty recesses and floors, just 

 as the brown rat is of sewers ; and the extermination of the black 

 ?at is due to the absence of the conditions which once fostered it 

 not to its having been driven away by the brown rat. 



