WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



deal of trouble for the Old English rat is by 

 no means often met with in England nowadays 

 I got some specimens from a seaport. They 

 were most interesting animals, but had one 

 terribly tiresome habit, and that was of 

 gnawing their way out of their cage. Though 

 kept in an outbuilding, two managed to get into 

 the house, which they ransacked from top to 

 bottom. They found secret ways inside the 

 walls, raided the cupboards and store-places, 

 and generally got into more mischief than 

 any one would believe, before I succeeded in 

 catching them up again. Fancy what it must 

 have meant in the old days when the houses 

 were chiefly built of wood and rats could 

 make their way anywhere. It was not only a 

 question of the actual mischief done by the 

 rats, but the terrible disease that they helped 

 to carry about. It is now known that rats, 

 both ' brown ' and 4 black,' can have the awful 

 ' bubonic plague,' which in bygone times was 

 a pestilence that often swept not only over the 

 Continent but also across these Islands. The 

 * Black Death ' the people called it. They died 

 in hundreds, whole families being exterminated 

 in a few days ; no one, whether prince or beggar, 

 was safe, and young and old, rich and poor, 

 184 



