296 THE GRAY RAT. 



that they can have had no apparent warning. A 

 house in which I lived in Yorkshire was close to a 

 small stream which came down from the moors, 

 and along the banks of which many gray rats made 

 their summer home. Invariably, an hour or so 

 before this stream rose in flood, the rats could be 

 heard under the floor of the house, having forsaken 

 the banks of the burn for this more secure residence. 

 The phenomenon was of such regular occurrence 

 that it ceased to create any wonder, it merely 

 being observed, on the rats being heard, that the 

 brook was about to rise again. 



SUMMER HABITS. 



I spent the spring and summer of 1919 at an 

 angling-resort by Loch Ken, in Galloway, and here 

 many interesting observations were made on the 

 summer habits of the gray rat. The house stands 

 at the loch-margin, considerably over a mile from 

 any other human habitation. It is surrounded by 

 picturesque woods in which wild life of every kind 

 abounds, and considering the stern nature of this 

 country one would hardly suspect the gray rat, so 

 intimately associated in our minds with the hives 

 of human industry, to be very abundant there. 

 Early in May, however, the rodents began to leave 

 the first signs of their passing, and thereafter, though 

 they were seldom seen, indications showed that they 

 were as numerous as the rabbits that thronged the 

 upper cliffs. 



We may digress for a moment in order to contem- 

 plate this fact as indicating the strength of numbers 

 the gray rat has attained. We know that every 

 town and city harbours its hundreds and thousands, 

 yet so wide is their range that here, in the heart of 

 the Galloway highlands, their unwelcome presence 



