100 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



seen a note being twenty ! Sometimes the young grow up 

 hairless or blind. Some years ago we disturbed a nest in the 

 garden from which issued half a dozen young Rats about four 

 inches long (head and body), all blind. They moved about 

 in a very uncertain manner, and were easily despatched. 

 Similar cases have been recorded. At the meeting of the Zoo- 

 logical Society in December, 1902, a hairless Rat was exhibited 

 on behalf of Mr. G. A. Doubleday, one of three captured 

 at Leyton, Essex, in the same condition. The skin, which was 

 slate-coloured, was wrinkled into folds all over the body. 

 Millais mentions a hairless Rat with yellow skin. 



In the country where it is known as the Barn Rat the 

 Tawny Owl and the Weasel are the farmer's best friends as 

 Rat-catchers, though they do not always get the consideration 

 that their services merit. The Weasel tribe are admittedly 

 also destroyers of poultry ; but the depredations of the Rat in 

 this connection are much more serious. They do much mis- 

 chief in chicken-runs, and being good swimmers and divers, 

 even ducklings afloat are not safe from them. If a pair of 

 ducks have made their nest on an island for safety, rats will 

 swim to it and feast on the eggs, or, should these be hatched, 

 kill the ducklings and eat them. It is more than probable 

 that much of the destruction of pheasant and partridge eggs 

 debited to the account of the Hedgehog, has really been 

 carried out by the Rat. Jordan (" Forest Tithes ") says he 

 has known a Rat or Rats take a dozen eggs from a wild 

 duck's nest and bury them in the soft peaty bottom of a moor- 

 land runnel, close to the nest. " I traced the whole proceeding 

 and dug the eggs out with my fingers." 



It does not matter where it is living, in town or country, the 

 Rat is equally destructive to property and live stock. We have 

 known them to destroy a crop of garden peas by ascending the 

 pea-sticks, night after night, lacerating all the pods that had 

 fair-sized peas within, and eating out every one. They skulk 



