THE BLACK RAT 



The Black Rat is not so large and strong, or so 

 courageous as the Brown Rat, consequently the 

 latter preys upon it, and it is slowly but surely 

 disappearing before the advance of its more powerful 

 cousin. In most of the older centres of civilisation 

 the Brown Rat has annihilated the Black Rat. 



In South Africa the Black Rat became established 

 before the Brown species, and, although the latter 

 for a long time has been preying upon it, yet it is 

 still common in most of the towns and villages. 

 In Cape Town the Black Rat was formerly very 

 common, but it has now been driven out by the 

 Brown Rat. In Port Elizabeth the Black Rat is 

 still quite common. I advertised for rats a year 

 or two ago and received some hundreds. An 

 average of one-half of them were Black Rats. I 

 confined some dozens of Brown and Black Rats in 

 a large cage and caused them to be well fed, but 

 nevertheless the Brown ones preyed upon their 

 Black relatives from time to time, until all of them 

 were eaten up. I then placed some fully adult 

 albino Rats with their wild brothers and sisters, 

 and to my surprise the Albinos attacked and ate 

 them. I subsequently let some of these white 

 rats loose in an outhouse which for some time had 

 been infested with Brown Rats. Within a couple 

 of weeks the latter had disappeared. 



The Black Rat is supposed to have come from 

 North Africa, India and Burma, where it is 

 indigenous. Other races of this species of Rat 

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