RATS 147 



brown rats in that cage. To some extent they 

 help to keep down one of the field-mice (Genus 

 Microtus), and this is especially the case in 

 North America ; ^ but the benefit is doubtful 

 since they are held to be at least as destructive 

 to the crops as the field-mice, and probably 

 more so. 



The ferocity with which they defend them- 

 selves when attacked is well known, and 

 at times, when they are driven by hunger, 

 they do not hesitate to attack man. They are 

 said to nibble the extremities of [^ infants, and 

 in one — apparently authentic — instance they 

 overcame and devoured a man who had entered 

 a disused coal-mine tenanted by starving 

 rats. The bite is said to be severe (they will 

 bite through a man's thumb-nail into the 

 flesh), and the bite is long in healing. 



Rats eat much garbage and offal, and readily 

 feed upon dead bodies. About sixty years 

 ago there stood, at Monfaucon, a slaughter- 

 house for horses, and this it was proposed 

 to remove still farther from Paris. It is 

 stated that the carcasses of the horses 

 slaughtered — which sometimes amounted to 

 thirty-five a day — were cleared to the bone 

 by rats in the course of the following night. 

 This excited the attention of a M. Dusaussois, 



1 'An Economic Study of Field-mice (Genus Microtus).'' By 

 Dr. Lantz, in U.S. Deft, of Agric, Biol. Survey, Bull. 31. 



L 2 



