GARDEN ANIMAL'S. 519 



We have the Brown Rat (Mus decumanus, fig. 1114), a voracious 

 and ferocious brute, which has been introduced into this country, and 

 has extirpated our national Black Rat (Mus rattus), 



" Curse me the British vermin, the rat ! 

 I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, 

 But I know that he lies and listens mute 

 In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes." TENNYSON. 



It breeds in our place, and destroys our young chickens, injures our 

 cats, and eats our seeds and garden produce. A former gardener 

 stated that one of these creatures made a nest of a valuable specimen 

 of Irish fern. In autumn they occasionally visit us in colonies. They 

 may be poisoned by phosphoric rat paste ; but if cats, or perhaps if 

 pigs, eat these poisoned rats, they are liable to be also destroyed. 

 Phosphoric rat paste is made by preparing a mixture of oatmeal in 

 hot water, and then stirring in some sticks of phosphorus, which melts 

 and becomes disseminated through the mixture. The rat mines with 

 facility, and hence we have great difficulty in preventing it from 

 going where it chooses. 



We have never seen the Black Rat at my garden, although several 

 have been caught at Finsbury Circus, w r hich were sent to the Zoo- 

 logical Gardens. Rats are readily tamed. I have seen French soldiers 

 at reviews with pet rats on their shoulders. I have had one which was 

 pleased to sit on a servant's shoulder when he traversed the heart of 



London. 



" A rat, a rat ! clap to the door 

 The cat comes bouncing on the floor : 

 O for the heart of Homer's mice, 

 Or gods to save them in a trice." POPE. 



We have the Common Mouse (Mus musculus, fig. 1115). It is a 

 pretty creature, but very mischievous, eating our seeds and buds 

 When they are troublesome, if the cats do not destroy them, we trap 

 them. The phosphoric rat paste is very poisonous to them. 



" The cat, with eyne of burning coal, 

 Now couches 'fore the mouses hole." 



The Field Mouse (Mus syfaatica, fig. 1116) used to exist in vast 



