256 FAMILY MURID^E ; VORACITY OF RATS. 



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

 above the twentieth part of the space 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 unusual 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 able to lodge themselves in the 

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

 distinctly traced, leading across the fields, from the inclosures 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 fight 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 unfrequently 

 excavated the 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 the waters of rivers and canals. The Brown 

 Rats wims with great ease. Mr.T. Bell * mentions that the gardens 

 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 caught during the day-time, or alarmed, perhaps, 

 at the concourse of persons by whom the gardens are frequented, 

 they are often seen towards evening crossing the canal in a body 

 from the opposite shore, 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 one of 

 the most sagacious of the Rodentia ; for the instances in which 

 it has been observed to show an adaptation of means to ends, to 

 which it can scarcely have been led by its natural instincts, and 

 * History of British Quadrupeds, p. 319. 



