312 MURID^E. 



guished engineer: In a coal-pit (Walker Colliery, near 

 Killingworth), in which many horses were employed, 

 the Rats, which fed upon the fodder provided for the 

 Horses, had accumulated in great multitudes. It was 

 customary in holiday times to bring to the surface the 

 Horses and the fodder, and to close the pit for the time. 

 On one occasion when the holiday had extended to ten 

 days or a fortnight, during which the Rats had been 

 deprived of food, on reopening the pit, the first man 

 who descended was attacked by the starving multitude, 

 and speedily killed and devoured. 



When they determine to leave a particular building, to 

 which they are generally instigated either by the cessation 

 of a sufficient supply of food, or, as it is proverbially 

 stated, when any ruinous injury is found to exist in its 

 masonry, they emigrate in a body, and by night ; and woe 

 to the devoted structure to which they attach themselves ! 

 They speedily commence their excavations, and in a short 

 time become so completely established, that nothing short 

 of famine can again dispossess them. They are bold and 

 ferocious when attacked, or when confined in a room with 

 either a human being or a Dog ; flying with the most 

 reckless fury at the object of their fear or anger. If 

 several be enclosed in a box together, they fight furi- 

 ously, and the weaker is not only killed, but devoured by 

 the stronger. The Rat swims with great ease. 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 daytime, or alarmed, perhaps, at the con- 

 course 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 



