2 3 o GNAWING ANIMALS 



English rats occasionally attain a weight of more than 

 four pounds and a length exceeding twenty-two inches. In 

 China they are fed up for food, and are hawked about for 

 sale. Weighing as much as seven or eight pounds, they are 

 not at all unlike small sucking-pigs. 



Rats are always found in coal-mines, securing the greater 

 part of their living from the provender of the horses em- 

 ployed underground and scraps of the miners' food. At 

 holiday times it is not unusual to bring to the surface the 

 horses and the store of corn. Once, says Mr. Robert 

 Stephenson, a pit was closed for a longer time than usual, 

 and the rats were reduced to starvation. The very first 

 man who descended to resume work was attacked by the 

 hungry horde, and killed and devoured before his friends 

 could descend to his rescue. 



Modern science has proved that the rat is very largely 

 instrumental in the spread of the plague, the ravages of 

 which, for example, in India alone in the years 1906-1908 

 caused no less than five million and a quarter deaths. 

 The Rodent is particularly susceptible to disease, that is 

 conveyed to man by fleas which infest its fur. The fleas 

 suck the blood of a plague-stricken rat, and as soon as the 

 victim is dead they desert the cold carcass to inflict, per- 

 haps, their next bites upon human beings, to whom they 

 convey the plague bacillus. Although the rat has always 

 had every man's hand against it, the constant efforts to 

 exterminate it have generally met with failure ; but the 

 resources of science are capable of proving too much for 

 the destructive and disease-disseminating vermin. Prepara- 

 tions can now be obtained which rats will greedily devour, 

 the effect of which is to cause a deadly epidemic to rage 

 among not only those that partake of it, but also the 

 animals with which they mix. Dogs, cats, fowls, &c., can 

 eat the preparation without suffering inconvenience. 



FIELD VOLE (Arvicola agrestis). 

 Plate XXII. Fig. i. 



The Field Vole, or Short-tailed Field Mouse, with a 

 body four inches long and a tail of an inch and a quarter, 



