R A T. 



533 



Astrachan in formidable numbers ; in numbers so 

 formidable, indeed, tbat no means of resisting them 

 could be found. They bad, moreover, to stem the 

 Volga, which is no stinted tide for a river, as the 

 numbers and size of the sturgeons can testify, without 

 any reference to the measurement of its actual dimen- 

 sions, the length of its course, or the velocity of its 

 current. That they had to cross this majestic river 

 is obvious, from the fact that the city of Astrachan is 

 on the right bank of the river, and the western deserts 

 are nn the left ; and to have worked round the sources 

 of the Volga in the central marshes of Russia, and 

 round those of the Oural in the mountain ridge which 

 bears the same name, would have been too much for 

 the most migrant rats on the face of the earth, more 

 especially if, according to the Rev. Mr. Ferryman, 

 and the older accounts to which we have alluded, 

 they had led the " disabled and the aged" along with 

 them. Pallas conjectures that numbers of them must 

 have been drowned in the Volga ; and this is highly 

 probable, if it can, in limine, be established that any 

 of them did cross that river, upon which point we 

 have some doubts. If it was the fact, however, the 

 " disabled and the aged " must have gone to feed the 

 fishes in the Volga and the Caspian. This ma}' be 

 i part, or in whole, the reason why the party that 

 arrived in Astrachan were in such " prime feather," 

 xv e mean prowess of tail, as that the people of that 

 curious city, though they are made up of almost every 

 people under the sun, were unable to withstand the 

 inundation or the overflow of those canine thickly- 

 serried foes. Into some parts of Europe they came 

 much earlier, though the precise hour of their coming, 

 the country of which they are natives, and the mode 

 of their march has not been ascertained. This is the 

 case in Britain, though they are understood to have 

 made their appearance there earlier than in France. 

 The accounts state that they were first found in ships, 

 and thus it is probable that they have been carried 

 by these to all parts of Europe. This is rendered 

 more likely by the fact that they were first observed 

 in seaport towns, and in the vicinity of the harbours. 

 In such towns they are met with in all parts of the 

 country, even in the extreme north ; but there are 

 some inland places which are not yet infested with 

 them, though such places are comparatively few. 

 Their first appearance in France is just as little 

 known ; but it is supposed that they were imported, 

 unintentionally of course, from Britain. In Paris the 

 authorities say that they were first observed about 

 the middle of the eighteenth century, but it is proba- 

 ble that they existed in some of the seaports before 

 that. time. There are still some of the inland parts 

 of France where not one is to be met with in a whole 

 district, or even in a whole department, thickly as 

 they swarm in other places. 



If, as is generally supposed, they have been car- 

 ried from place to place in ships, we may readily 

 conclude that animals which require so much food, 

 would not land excepting at places where food was 

 to be had ; but sea-ports generally are receptacles of 

 garbage ; and while the brown rats confine themselves 

 io these, their labours may be accounted useful. Their 

 powers of multiplication are so great, however, that, 

 if they once take up their abode in the sewers and 

 drains opening into harbours, they very speedily ex- 

 tend to other places. 



They are properly ground animals, and in those 

 places where the two species of this country yro found 



together, they are called ground rats or flax rats 1 , in dis- 

 tinction from the black ones, which are roof rats. In 

 towns where they are found together, and they still 

 are so in more places than is commonly supposed, the 

 black rats have their rendezvous in the cock-loft, or 

 above the ceiling^ of the uppermost rooms ; while 

 the brown ones are in the cellars under the lower 

 floors, or in the foundations of the walls, if these are 

 such as they can be worked into burrows. The brown 

 rats make burrows with great vigour and expedition ; 

 but not if they can find some ready made. When 

 they are in a house, both endeavour to open for them- 

 selves a communication with all parts of it, and espe- 

 cially those that smell of animal matter. The black 

 ones descend between the walls and the plaster, if 

 (here is an opening there, or between the two coats 

 of lath and plaster in a partition which is left open 

 in the centre. When this is the case, and the space 

 between the joists are not deafened, the house is very 

 apt to become a rat's palace, xvhere they stride about 

 and squeak the whole night long, so that it is not 

 easy to sleep in any apartment. If a post comes in 

 the way, they set very determinedly to work in cut- 

 ting through it ; and at this they xvill continue with 

 little intermission night and day ; but whether by the 

 same individual, or by successive reliefs, has not been 

 ascertained. 



In the neighbourhood of Paris they are exceed- 

 ingly numerous ; and the chief places of attraction 

 for them are those at which xvorn-out horses arc 

 killed ; for it does not appear that the French are such 

 great economists of carrion as the English in London, 

 A report of these slaughter-houses and their rats was 

 not long ago made to the French government. The 

 object was the removal of a horse-killing establish- 

 ment at Montfaucon to a greater distance from the 

 city ; and to this it was gravely objected, lest the 

 brown rats, deprived of their accustomed nightly mess 

 of horseflesh, should fall upon the people. It must be 

 admitted that the darings of these rats evinced no 

 small force on their part. Five-and-thirty horses 

 were sometimes slain at this place in a day, and by 

 next morning the rats had made clean skeletons of 

 the whole of them. This it appears is the way in 

 which carrion is got rid of in Paris ; and they have 

 rat holes at the bases of the xvalls for admitting the 

 nightly scavengers. Dussaussois, xvho keeps one of 

 these establishments, resolved to surprise the rats at 

 their meal. For this purpose he lodged the carcasses 

 of two horses in an inclosure with high walls ; and 

 when he judged that the rats were come in proper 

 numbers, he sent round and carefully stopped all the 

 holes'by which they could escape. This being done, 

 he mustered his forces for the attack, each man armed 

 with a torch in one hand and a bludgeon in the other, 

 arid instantly they closed the door. The rats fled in 

 all directions from the light of the torches, but from 

 the bangs of the cudgels there was no escape, and 

 the result was the death of a vast number of rats. 

 One single night gave more than two thousand five 

 hundred ; four nights more than nine thousand ; and 

 though the hunt was only occasional, yet, in the 

 course of a single month, eighteen thousand rats had 

 bit the dust. This was rat-catching on a style which 

 the Parisians might well have termed magmfiquc, and 

 we have nothing to equal it in Britain. 



It is said indeed that there are often curious en- 

 counters between the nightmen and the rats in some 

 of the subways under the British metropolis. None 



