528 



RAT. 



" restless rattan," which always means the black rat ; 

 as the word was fashionably cut down to half its 

 number of letters before the brown rat was common 

 in the country. The " riggin'" is also the very place 

 of the roof for the black rat. We need hardly say 

 that " riggin' " is merely the Scottish mode of pro- 

 nouncing the word ridging. A strong tree or pole, 

 laid from end to end, is the " riggin '-tfee," and by 

 way of eminence the " roof-tree" of these old-fashioned 

 houses ; and so essential is this to the stability of the 

 houses, that it was the emblematical word for the 

 chief of a clan, or the master of a house ; it is even 

 the same in the English language. " Husband," q. d., 

 " House-band," is the very same idea as this ; for the 

 " riggin'-tree," or " roof-tree," is " the band of the 

 house." The poor vassals used sometimes to feel this 

 in a very cruel manner ; for if a barbarous .chief wished 

 to drive a number of them from any locality, he sent 

 his myrmidons to pull all their roof-trees during the 

 snow ; and down fell roof, snow, and all, destroying 

 their few sticks of 'furniture, and driving them and 

 their children, and, in most cases, their sick, homeless 

 and foodless, to the snowy desert. An instance of 

 this occurred as recently as in one of the early years 

 of the present century. It was during a heavy snow, 

 'and many roof-trees were drawn. Our present busi- 

 ness, however, is with the rats. 



This " riggin' " forms a very convenient lodgment 

 for whole colonies of them ; for the way in which the 

 rest of the roof is applied leaves a vacant space over 

 it, which is covered by the thatch, and farther made 

 warm and dry by an external ridging of turf, or some 

 other protecting material. This is, therefore, the appro- 

 priate place for the black rat ; and it is most partial 

 to an apartment in which there is a fire. In such 

 places they often set up a terrible squeaking ; but as 

 it is usually in concealment, there is no knowing whe- 

 ther love, war, or family discipline is the principal 

 cause ; though each may be a cause in turn. Even 

 in barns and other outhouses they prefer the roof, and 

 are rare in places where that is not suited for being 

 their abode. This also is noticed by Burns. When 

 one of the "lasses" went to the barn to lift the veil 

 of futurity by dire incantation there, a frightened 

 black rat is described as frightening her still more 

 than she had frightened it. 



" A rnttan rattled up the wa' ; 



An" she cried Lord preserve her '. 

 Aa" ran through midderrhole an" a', 

 Prayin' \vi' zeal and fervour." 



The escape of tbe rattan, which the entrance of 

 the damsel had probably disturbed when at its supper 

 in the corn-bin, or heap, was " up the ivfi 1 " to seek 

 safety in the roof; and indeed in all allusions to this 

 species of rat, running up the wall is mentioned. 

 There is a puzzle in pronunciation common among 

 the children in the country places of Scotland, which 

 confirms what is said by Burns, and completely esta- 

 blishes the habit : 



" The rattan lap up the wa'; loup, rattan, loup." 



These matters are of some consequence in the 

 natural history of rats. Rats are associated both 

 literally and figuratively with many points of do- 

 mestic story ; and as, in modern times, the brown 

 rat is the only known rat in most parts of Britain, it 

 is found that the rat 'of history and the rat of per- 

 sonal observation do not agree ; and of course the 

 historical one is put to the wall, and the whole point 

 of it, and story concealed under it, are lost. 



Tho brown rat does not take possession of the 

 roof of the house, and its escape is more frequently 

 downwards than upwards. It is, in fact, much more 

 different from the black one in manners than it is in 

 appearance and colour ; and the places where they 

 ate met with, in the same building are few and pecu- 

 liar, generally where some "auld clay biggin'" stands 

 in a place where all around has been modernised, 

 \\here the houses are formed of such materials, and 

 so built,4hat there is no shelter for a rat in the roof. 

 It does not appear that the black rat was ever much 

 of a city rat, or resorted to houses built of masonry 

 and roofed with tiles or slates, though in the thatched 

 towns, which, beini? generally enclosed, and often 

 having farm or dairy buildings attached to them, 

 partake more of the character of concentrated groups 

 of country houses than of towns in the proper sense 

 of the word. It also used to be said, and, so far as 

 our observation goes, there is some truth in it, that 

 rats never haunted the poorer cottages, but abandoned 

 them to their more small and feeble congeners, the 

 mice. On this account rats were accounted conco- 

 mitants of riches, just as the gout is so accounted in 

 other states of society. The truth appears to be 

 pretty much the same in both cases. The gout 

 appears to come chiefly in those cases where the 

 quantity ate and drank is too great for wholesome 

 assimilation, or, at all events, for the proper supply 

 of the waste of the body. This waste bears aluays 

 a proportion to the quantity of exercise to which the 

 body is subjected when that exercise is not carried to 

 undue severity, and thus indolence aids excessive 

 supply in occasioning gout. Gout may thus be 

 said to be the effect of, to use a homely word, "a 

 litter in the system" useless lumber lying in the 

 way of the working 'parts ; and if this "litter" is 

 removed, there is no more gout. Now, the case of 

 the rats is exactly parallel to this case of gout. It is 

 not the wealth and leisure of a man that brings this 

 painful and little-pitied malady upon him ; it is the 

 improper use of them ; and, in like manner, it is not 

 the wealth that may be in the house, but the fact of 

 substances tempting to rats lying littering about, that 

 brings them ; and upon this principle a tidy house is 

 always less infested with them than a slovenly one. 

 This may be, in so far, true of the brown rat as well 

 as of the black one, but it is by no means so generally 

 true. Clean houses, and plentifully-supplied sewors 

 and drains, are the places for the brown rat, which, 

 so that it gets enough, is perhaps less particular as 

 to the quality and cleanliness of its food than any 

 other animal that could be named : all carrion, all 

 garbage, all refuse and slops, so that there is animal 

 matter or vegetable matter in them, recent or in a 

 state of decomposition, are welcome to the brown 

 rat. Instances have occurred in which there were 

 none but black rats in the old-fashioned parts of a 

 town where there were thatched roofs, stagnant 

 pools, and no underground drainage ; while in those 

 parts of the very same town which were modern, 

 clean, and well drained, there were abundance of 

 brown rats in the underground places, but not a 

 single black one in any part of the houses. 



Such appear to be the chief reasons that bring 

 these two species of rats each to or near the habi- 

 tations of men, when these habitations are in a par- 

 ticular state ; and 'the fact that the black rat has dis- 

 appeared from most parts of Britain, and the brown 

 one come in its stead, proves that the houses and 



