CHAPTER XXXVIII.-GROUND 

 VERMIN. 



RATS. 



A LTHOUGH rats have acquired, not only in this but 

 JLJL in other countries, a character for rapacity and 

 destructiveness of the worst type, still they are not wholly 

 without redeeming qualities ; while the natural history of 

 the animal, upon close investigation, reveals many traits 

 of great interest, and, as far as intelligence and cunning 

 are concerned, it is as well provided as any of the vermin 

 yet considered. 



The rats of which we shall take note in this chapter 

 are the black rat, the brown rat, and, as a natural conse- 

 quence of noticing the latter, the water rat, for very 

 often the brown rat adopts similar habits to those of 

 the water-vole, and this comparatively speaking harmless 

 animal receives credit for the misdeeds of its more 

 numerous congener. 



The Black Rat } now become nearly extinct in the 

 United Kingdom, occupied, before the advent of the larger, 

 brown kind, the same position as the one now so annoy- 



