102 RAT. 



put a pregnant mouse into a vessel of corn, he Boon found 

 a hundred and twenty mice, all sprung from the same 

 original. 



THE RAT. 



This is one of the most pernicious of the smaller qua- 

 drupeds ; nor can all the arts of man extirpate the race. 

 Not only our food, our drink, our clothes, and our furni- 

 ture, are a prey to it, but it makes dreadful havoc among 

 young poultry, rabbits, and game. It can gradually pene- 

 trate the hardest wood, and the most solid mortar ; and no 

 care or ingenuity can wholly exempt us from its depreda- 

 tions. The cat, the weasel, and the dog, combine with 

 the human race in thinning its numbers ; yet it finds means 

 to elude their united efforts, and still remains formidable. 



Till about the commencement of the last century, Bri- 

 tain was indeed annoyed with rats, but by a species com- 

 paratively harmless. Our small black rat, which has now 

 given way to the Norway breed, was much less injurious 

 than the latter ; but the species is almost extinct. Such 

 is the superior ferocity of the large Norway rat, that it has 

 almost annihilated the indigenous animal, and has entailed 

 upon our country a still greater plague. 



The rat is said to produce from fifteen to thirty at a 

 time, and that frequently : hence we cannot wonder at its 

 astonishing numbers, and that all the means employed to 

 reduce them are only partial and temporary alleviations of 

 the evil. Its bite is not only severe but dangerous ; and its 

 resolution, reinforced by its disgusting appearance, renders 

 it the object even of terror to many. The harmless mouse 

 pleases more than it alarms by its intrusions ; but there are 

 few who do not feel a sort of antipathy at a rat, and even 

 shun it as they would a viper. 



The Europeans first introduced these animals into Ame- 

 rica, about the year 1544; and they are already become 

 the pest of that whole continent, America has lent us its 

 ills ; but, by bestowing on it the rat, from which no vigi- 

 lance can give protection, we have, in some measure, 

 balanced the account of injuries. The water-rat, which 



