No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 187 



in linen in one month. They gnaw ivory, shoes, gloves, leather 

 and rubber goods in stores; ruin harnesses; strip paper labels 

 from canned goods, and even eat manufactured feather goods 

 in the millinery stores. They destroy mail sacks and their 

 contents. I talked with a clerk in a large clothing emporium 

 who told me that the firm had employed a man regularly as a 

 rat catcher for two years, but that rats were still so numerous 

 that they ruined about one suit of clothes nightly. 



Rats kill trees by undermining and gnawing their roots. 

 They burrow into and undermine dams, dikes and levees, often 

 causing breaks and serious losses. They cause much damage 

 to all fish hatcheries and fish ponds w^iere food fishes are arti- 

 ficially propagated, for there they gnaw through wooden tanks, 

 burrow into the embankments and destroy quantities of fish 

 which they catch and eat. 



About the year 1616 rats caused a two years' famine in 

 Bermuda. They were considered largely responsible for a 

 famine in India following the year 1879, and became so numer- 

 ous on the Island of Mauritius that the Dutch were compelled 

 to abandon it.^ 



Rat Incendiarism. 

 Fires are attributed commonly to rats and matches. Rats are 

 attracted by the phosphorus contained in matches, or by the 

 paraffin in which some manufac- 

 turers of matches dip their goods. 

 Matches have been found in rat 

 nests, and in one case at least a 



, ^ J? 1 1 • 1 1 1 l_ The incendiary. 



nest was found which had been 



set fire by such a match which nearly caused a fire on Her 



Majesty's ship "Revenge."^ 



Rats' winter nests are made commonly in buildings, between 

 walls and near chimneys, where it is often very hot. The nests 

 are built of dry and inflammable material. When rats take 

 matches to these nests fire is very likely to result, either from 

 the friction of the rats' teeth or from the heat, which readily 

 ignites matches containing a large percentage of phosphorus. 



1 Lantz, David E.,Treas. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U. S., The Rat and 

 its Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, 1910, p. 223. 



2 Hardwicke's Science Gossip, Vol. 5, 1869, p. 142. 



