Popular Science Monthly 



year, and that on a farm at 

 least 50 cents more was 

 wasted; he believed that in 

 a city the damage is greater. 

 Hotel managers and restau- 

 rant keepers put the cost of 

 keeping a rat at $5 a year or 

 even higher. 



These figures were reason- 

 able before the war sent prices 

 soaring. Now they are far 

 too low. 



The Rat Is an International 

 Problem 



It would be tedious to 

 enumerate the different ways 

 in which rats cause direct or 

 indirect loss. Some of them 

 are injury to furniture and 

 clothing, destruction of valuable 

 papers, stripping labels from 

 canned goods, hiding jewelry, 

 destruction of poultry, and the 

 catching and destruction of 

 hatchings in fisheries. They 

 even gnaw into the hoofs of 

 horses until the feet bleed, and 

 .have been known to kill young 

 pigs and lambs. The variety of 

 articles carried away for nest 

 building is shown by a nest in 

 which were found bits from 

 three bedroom towels, two 

 table napkins, five dust 

 'cloths, two pairs of knick- 



At left is the 

 brown rat, at 

 right the black 

 rat, each one- 

 third its size 



917 



erbockers, six linen hand- 

 kerchiefs, and one silk hand- 

 kerchief. Near the same nest 

 were stored one and a half 

 pounds of sugar, a pudding, a 

 stalk of celery, a beet, carrots, 

 turnips, and potatoes. 



Another count against the 

 rat is the spreading of disease 

 germs. The bubonic plague is 

 spread almost entirely by a rat- 

 borne flea. Trichinosis is also 

 spread by rats. As the rodents 

 are frequenters of drains, pi iv- 

 ies, and sewers in their search for 

 food, they spread ptomaines. In 

 slums, where they are present in 

 large numbers, they are a factor in 

 spreading highly contagious and 

 malignant diseases. Owing to their 

 prevalence on ships, they carry 

 disease from seaport to seaport, and 

 are a menace to be considered in the 

 international control of the world's 

 plagues. 



The rat that is most common 

 and most troublesome in the 

 United States is the brown rat. 

 The black rat, formerly abundant 

 in the eastern part of the coun- 

 try, is now rare in the United 

 States; it was introduced 

 earlier than the brown rat, 

 but seems to be unable 

 to hold its own here suc- 

 cessfully. 



At left: A single corn 

 stalk showing how com- 

 pletely the rats stripped 

 the corn-cobs of grain 



An entire cornfield devastated by rats, which 

 climbed the stalks, tore off the husks and 

 ate the grain, leaving only the cobs 



The carcass of a young Canada goose, killed 

 like hundreds of others by a rat which 

 gnawed off the head and drank the blood 



