GOLDSMITH ON THE BROWN RAT 57 



credited with being the cause of numberless 

 deaths annually by working its way into drains, 

 and so allowing the escape of sewage and foul 

 gases into dwellings, as well as by a similar 

 process occasioning the contamination of wells, 

 etc., to say nothing of the serious injury sustained 

 by buildings by reason of their becoming under- 

 mined. Altogether it is a loathsome and 

 dangerous animal, and does infinitely more harm 

 than good. I for one should be only too glad to 

 know that every brown rat in the country was ex- 

 terminated. 



Goldsmith writes of the brown rat as follows : 

 4 In a very few years after its arrival, it found 

 means to destroy almost the whole species [i.e., the 

 black rat], and to possess itself of their retreats. 

 All other animals of inferior strength shared the 

 same fate. The frog had been designedly intro- 

 duced into Ireland some years before the Norway 

 rat, and was seen to multiply exceedingly. The 

 Irish were pleased at the introduction of a harm- 

 less animal, which served to rid their fields of 

 insects ; but the Norway rat soon put a stop to 

 their increase, for, as they were of an amphibious 

 nature, they pursued the frog to its lakes, and 

 took it even in its own natural element. The 

 Norway rat has the same disposition to injure us, 

 with much greater powers of mischief than the 

 black rat. . . . Scarcely any of the feeble 

 animals escape its rapacity except the mouse, 

 which shelters itself in its little hole, where the 



