290 THE GRAY RAT. 



The extraordinary power of survival of these 

 animals is largely due to their ability to colonise, 

 the rat millions of the thickly peopled centres being 

 ever ready to send their pioneers into new country 

 in quest of fortune. So systematic and intelligent 

 are their movements in this way that many 

 picturesque accounts have been written in which 

 something in the way of a central exchange, 

 or distribution department, organised by the rat 

 leaders for the benefit of the rat masses, has been 

 feigned to exist ; but there is no special reason 

 why we should imagine that these creatures 

 possess any uncanny powers in the organisation 

 of their numbers. Their intelligent distribution 

 follows in the wake of their numbers as a 

 natural course of events, and their seemingly un- 

 canny ability to locate new quarters is probably 

 owing to the fact that the pioneers and fore- 

 runners leave a scent-trail behind them, which 

 their fellow-citizens, uninvited, and probably un- 

 wished for, readily follow. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Here is an example illustrating to what ex- 

 tent rats follow in the footsteps of their leaders. 

 When the writer was a boy we had in the grounds 

 of our home a small wooden outhouse where bulbs 

 were stored, and where, incidentally, a brace of 

 ferrets were kept. There was always sufficient 

 food lying about this place to keep one or two rats 

 in plenty ; yet, owing to its isolation from other 

 buildings, no rats discovered it for a matter of four 

 years after it was erected. Then one morning 

 it was found that a rat was about. The creature 

 was at once trapped, but it made no difference. 

 Never again was that outhouse without its rat 



