No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 251 



SUMMARY. 



The rat has become the greatest rodent pest ever known. 

 It is more destructive to property and more dangerous to 

 human Hfe and health than any other animaL There is no 

 panacea for the rat scourge, no one method that can be reUed 

 upon alone to exterminate rats. They should be starved and 

 evicted by rat-proofing buildings, drains, food and garbage 

 receptacles, and burning garbage or rubbish in or under which 

 they feed or breed, and by quickly threshing and marketing all 

 grains or storing them in rat-proof buildings. Then, suffering 

 the pangs of hunger, their breeding places destroyed or exposed, 

 they may be readily trapped, poisoned and shot, or harried by 

 man and their natural enemies. Fumigation of burrows with 

 carbon bisulphide is exterminative where conditions are favor- 

 able for its employment. The so-called animal viruses, Pasteur 

 viruses, etc., are expensive, and apparently not efficient enough 

 in practical service to warrant their general use. Co-operative 

 efforts with all effective methods and continual persecution are 

 required to abate the rat evil. 



