CHAPTER IV 



THE next example to be presented is of a group of rats 

 occupying six adjacent houses in Poona city which were 

 obviously different from the common rats of that place. 

 The case is interesting because the fate of the group 

 was ascertained. In Rangoon we were dealing with at 

 least five distinct species of rodents, but in Poona there 

 is only one, the common Mus rattus. In Rangoon, rats 

 were being obtained in greater numbers than at Poona, 

 but at the latter place their capture was accomplished 

 in a systematic manner, under the direction of a member 

 of the Plague Commission. The chief purpose was to 

 obtain knowledge of plague, whereas in Rangoon the aim 

 was to lessen or stamp out the disease by the destruction 

 of as many rats as possible. However, the experiments 

 in Poona were on no small scale, for the records of the 

 Commission show that in the interval between the 26th 

 May, 1908 and the 22nd May of the following year, 45,487 

 rats were captured in that city. They were caught in 

 the following manner : Every night a large number of 

 traps were set in certain houses of the town, each trap 

 was labelled with the address of the house in which it was 

 placed. Next morning the traps were examined and those 

 containing rats, in all to the number of a hundred or more, 

 were taken to the laboratory. Each rat then became the 

 subject of various observations, which were recorded in 



