R A T. 



of these subways are without rats, arid they no doubt 

 contribute tflthe keeping of these troublesome tenants 

 out of houses. Many of the sinks into which offal, 

 which, however, is very acceptable food for the rats, 

 are such, that a rat cannot find egress from them into 

 the house. The Walls and archways are also in 

 general rat-proof, so that the fellows'are confined to 

 their subterranean dwelling-, which, however, is a very 

 ample and widely ramified one, and its inmates are 

 pretty well fed at all points, but chiefly near the ter- 

 minations of the smaller drains, which are of course 

 the principal points of attraction. Near the slaugh- 

 ter-houses, markets, and other places where there is 

 much offal washed into the sinks, the rats are very 

 abundant ; and one may better see and hear them 

 through the gratings ; but these are generally so 

 placed or formed, as that a rat cannot get up ; and the 

 brown rats are not nearly so expert climbers as the 

 black ones. 



Thus there is, in those sewers and drainages, which 

 contribute so much to the cleanliness and health of 

 London, a regular permanent population, probably 

 outnumbering the human population above ground 

 many hundred times. This population disturbs or 

 injures very few, it subsists upon what the above- 

 ground population throw away, and in so doing it is 

 useful. Among such a population the regular mor- 

 tality must be considerable ; though there are no 

 means of ascertaining its amount. Very few dead 

 rats are seen however, and those that are seen belong 

 chiefly to the above-ground rats, of which there are 

 also considerable numbers. Even when at the full 

 flood of their discharge in heavy rains, the great 

 sewers of London roll but a scanty supply of dead 

 ra'.s to the river, probably not more, if as many, as 

 the tale of dead dogs, wafted by the open Fleet Ditch 

 alone in the days of Pope. Where they are long, 

 they waft very little animal matter of any kind, so 

 that the floods which they discharge, unless from 

 places near the banks, are far more unseemly than 

 unhealthy. For this we have to thank the rats ; and 

 it is of much greater service than those who have not 

 experienced a city with all its refuse stagnating about 

 it, would readily believe. Cleanliness ought to be 

 generally attended to; but still, human cleanliness is 

 only a transfer, not a removal ; and if there are not 

 some means of dissipating the refuse, the cure would 

 in time become worse than the disease. In the case 

 of good under-drainage the rats do this, and carry it 

 to the full length of making, among themselves, the 

 maws of the living the sepulchres, of the dead ; so 

 that they may be regarded as final consumers. 

 , In ordinary states of things, when the seweis are 

 all sound and free, and the weather steady, matters 

 go on with great regularity, and not with more noise 

 than migh^, be expected among animals so ready to 

 fight, either for love or glory, as these rats are. But 

 when a heavy rain comes on suddenly, the rats 

 are put in motion, and the effect of it upon them 

 may, in part, be compared to that of the setting in ol 

 the seasonal rains in the warm countries. It puts 

 them in motion, and makes them scamper about ; but 

 it brings an additional supply of food ; and if the 

 brown rats have plenty to eat, they are not very par- 

 ticular as to lodging. Although not absolutely aquatic, 

 they, prefer places near water, are expert swimmers, 

 and not liable to be easily drenched with wet. When 

 the nightmen get into the sewers with torches, the 

 first rats the}' get sight of generally retire before the 



iu;ht ; but as they proceed, and the numbers accu- 

 nulate, the rats at last make a stand, and fight des- 

 icrately. The fijrht is said (for few see it), to begin 

 among'themselves. The party which the light diives 

 up the sewer, are mistaken by the others into whose 

 natural territory they have come, for invaders that 

 lave hostile intentions. The tocsin is accordingly 

 sounded, arid the natives muster en masse, and bearing 

 to the point of attack ; between their fear of the 

 torches, and the fact of having no hostile intention, 

 the brown rats are deprived of stomach for fighting 

 their fellows, and so they turn ; by this means the 

 whole of the rats are turned toward the human in- 

 vaders ; and though their proper object is in all like- 

 lihood merely that of getting past the men, and so 

 escaping, yet the men are said to be sometimes over- 

 powered by numbers, and fairly put to the rout, 

 though the "return of the killed is always in the mus- 

 ter-roll of the rats only. 



In places where there are no archways for the 

 habitations of these rats, and which yet afford sub- 

 sistence for them, they often do considerable damage 

 by their excavations. They often undermine the 

 foundations of granaries and store-houses, of manu- 

 factories which abound in offal, and of mills ; and in the 

 last case they sometimes mine through the dams of 

 the ponds and let out the water. The Parisian horse- 

 killing places are those at which the greatest number 

 have been observed ; and there the supply of food is 

 so abundant and so tempting, that they have worked 

 some of the adjoining grounds full of holes like those 

 of a rabbit-warren. This has been done to such an 

 extent, 1 that the surface has, in many places, fallen in ; 

 and the distant colonies have made regularly beaten 

 paths from their habitations to places where they 

 find and feed upon the carrion during the night. 



They are always apt to accumulate about places 

 where animals are kept, though they do not always 

 lodge in such places. Menageries always have a 

 smell of carrion about them, however clean they may 

 be kept, and, having this, they are sure to attract the 

 brown rats. The Zoological Society of London feel 

 this in their gardens at Regent's Park, which are 

 visited at night by rats from the other side of the 

 canal. Of course they do not offer battle to lions 

 and tigers, or to any of the large animals ; but they 

 destroy the small ones, especially the young of guinea- 

 pigs. In poultry yards and preserved grounds they 

 also commit considerable depredations on the eggs 

 and the young birds. Of grain, they are perhaps not, 

 upon the whole, quite so destructive as the mice, and 

 their depredations are not so well seen, as they do 

 not inhabit the ricks, and barns, and binns of corn ; 

 but they plunder during the night, and carry off con- 

 siderable quantities to their subterranean abodes. 



Their personal appearance does not require much 

 description, as there are few persons, especially about 

 towns and other thickly inhabited places, that have 

 not opportunities of seeing a brown rat. It is the 

 largest of the genus to be met with in Britain, being, 

 in full grown ones, fully ten inches long in the head 

 and body, of which the head occupies nearly two 

 and a half. The ears are about two-thirds of an inch 

 long, which is less than the length of those of the 

 black rat ; the tail is also shorter in proportion ; and 

 both they and the muzzle are nearly naked ; the tail 

 is annulated with the scaly plates of epidermis, already 

 noticed as being general in the genus ; these are 

 without any fur ; but there are a few short and scat- 



