No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. ' 245 



and these were enticed outside the barn for her convenience. 

 Probably fifty rats could have been trapped in that barn in 

 two weeks — after the nine months' work of the cat. Mr. 

 Wilfrid Wheeler had a cat that at one time averaged two rats 

 a day for a week, but the rats were so numerous there that 

 the cat made no visible impression on their numbers, and 

 finally poison was resorted to. The two cats above named may 

 be considered excellent rat catchers. 



The following letter from Surgeon G. M. Corput in the 

 United States Pubhc Health Reports shows how little depend- 

 ence can be placed on the cat as a rat exterminator : — 



Every quarantine officer is familiar with the old plea of shipmasters that 

 there is no use of fumigating the cabin of a vessel because there is a cat 

 on board wliich is an excellent ratter and renders it impossible for rats 

 to live in cabin. The enclosed pictures are the result of not believing 

 this story. (See opposite page.) The British steamship "Ethelhilda" 

 arrived at this station [New Orleans Quarantine] March '18, from the 

 west coast of Africa. The captain assured me that it was impossible 

 for any rats to be in the cabin of his vessel because of the presence of 

 an exceptionally good cat. The cabin was nevertheless fumigated. 

 Through the irony of fate the cat was forgotten. When the cabin was 

 opened up the enclosed picture shows the result. (See opposite page.) 

 Every part of the ship had many rats. The picture is limited, how- 

 ever, to what was found in the cabin, — one cat, twenty-four rats. ' 



A rat-catching cat no doubt tends to drive rats away from 

 the dwelling where it is domiciled to some other place where 

 such cats are not kept. Nevertheless, if rats have good harbor- 

 age and a plentiful supply of food, they often remain and 

 increase in spite of the best of cats. For this reason many 

 farmers are not content with one cat but keep a number, which 

 they find more effective than one in keeping down the rat 

 population. It costs very little to keep cats if they are fed 

 only the "strippings" at milking time, and are allowed to pick 

 up their own living otherwise. In this way from three to forty 

 cats are kept on some farms, some of which are worthless as 

 rat catchers. In such cases there is doubtless a great indirect 

 loss to the farmer in the number of insect-eating birds that the 

 cats destroy, which if it could be reduced to dollars and cents 



1 Public Health Reports, Vol. 29, No. 16, April 17, 1914, p. 928. 



