326 HISTORY OF 



inillioiis may be at once destroyed, and yet the breach be re. 

 paired in the space of a very few weeks ; and in proportion as 

 nature has denied them force, it has supplied the defect by thieir 

 fecundity. 



THE GREAT RAT. 



The animal best kno^\Ti at present, and in every respect the 

 most mischievous, is the great rat ; which, though but a new 

 comer into this country, has taken too secure a possession to be 

 ever removed. This hateful and rapacious creature, though 

 sometimes called the rat of Norway, is utterly unknovm in all 

 the northern countries, and, by the best accounts I can learn, 

 comes originally from the Levant. Its first arrival, as I am as- 

 sured, was upon the coasts of Ireland, in those ships that traded 

 in provisions to Gibraltar ; and perhaps we owe to a single pair 

 of these animals, the numerous progeny that now infests the 

 whole extent of the British empire. 



This animal, which is called by Mr Buffon the surmuht,* is 



* The Surmulot or brown rat came from the southern regions of Asia, 

 and its instinct has established it more completely among us than we could 

 Iiave ever done by our intelligence. Vain eiforts, indeed, are daily made to 

 naturalize in our climates species that miyht be useful, and which seem to 

 require much less for that purpose than this animal, whose wants are num. 

 erous. Notwithstanding this, it has been introduced and multiplied among 

 MS, in spite of every natural difficulty with which it had to encounter, and 

 every effort on our part to expel it. Its multiplication at present is so great 

 that it is impossible effectually to oppose its encroachments and ravages. 

 It finds sustenance and shelter to such an extent in the habitations of man, 

 that he may be considered more as its protector than its enemy. 



The surmulots have found in the burrows which they have dug beneath 

 our roofs that degree of temperature necessary to their preservation. In 

 our cultivated fields, in our granaries, in fact in all the provision wlxich the 

 foresight of man has collected, they have found an aliment suitable to their 

 life, and favourable to their reproduction. Under other circumstances they 

 must have perished here from the effect of our ^vinters, as they have neither 

 the faculty of lethargizing from the cold, nor the instinct of hoarding up 

 provision. They have profited by the fear with which we have inspired 

 their natmral adversaries ; and their own natural distrust has preserved 

 them against our attacks and artifices. 



The surmvilot is larger than the rat. Tliey are sometimes foimd above 

 eight or nine inches in length. The tail is about one-eighth of the body. 

 This animal is less heavy and clumsy than the marmot or the beaver, and 

 less light than the dormouse or squirrel. Its motions ai"e prompt ui;d 



