256 FAMILY MURIDX ; VORACITY OF RATS. 



for the inclosure in winch they were thus killed, contains not 

 ahove the twentieth part of the spaee over which the dead bodies 

 of Horses are spread, and which, it is but fair to suppose, must 

 equally attract the Rats upon all points. These animals have 

 made burrows for themselves, like Rabbits, in the adjoining 

 fields, and hollowed out into catacombs all the surrounding 

 eminences ; and this to such an extent, that it is not unu>ual to 

 see the latter crumble away at the base, leaving these subterra- 

 nean works exposed. So great is the number of these animals, 

 that they have not all been ,iMe to lodge themselves in the 

 immediate vicinity of the slaughter-houses; for paths may be 

 distinctly traced, leading across the fields, from the inclosnres in 

 which the Horses are killed, to a burrow about five hundred 

 paces distant. 



225. The voracity and ferocity of Rats cause them not even 

 to spare their own kind. If several be inclosed together in a 

 box, they fiidit furiously ; and the weaker is not only killed but 

 devoured by the stronger. (The same has been observed even of 

 the common Mouse.) Their burrowing propensities have often 

 been productive of great injury ; for they have not [infrequently 

 excavated the 1 foundations of a dwelling to a dangerous extent ; 

 and there are many instances of their fatally undermining the 

 most solid mason-work, or burrowing through dams, which had for 

 ages served to confine 1 the waters of rivers and canals. The Brown 

 Rat swims with ^reat ease. Mr.T. 1 Jell * mentions that the wardens 

 of the Zoological Society of London, in the Regent's Park, are 

 greatly infested by them ; but as they are too cunning to risk the 

 danger of being eairjlit during the day-time, or alarmed, perhaps, 

 at the concourse of persons by whom the uard'Mis are frequented, 

 tin".* are often s"en tward< evening erossiirj the canal in a bodv 

 from the opposite >hore. in order to land in the gardens, and enjoy 

 their night's depredations, returning in the morning in the same 

 manner to their daily retreat. This animal is probably on? of 

 the mo<r fifi/jnri'Hts of the Rodentia ; for the instances in which 

 it ha^ been observed to show an adaptation of means to e:>ds, to 

 which it can scare-ly have been led by its natural instincts, and 

 * Ili-t-ji- of HritMi OiKidnjcds., . .'Jl'J. 



