THE GRAY RAT. 297 



in the ever- unwelcome numbers is forcibly brought 

 home to us. They penetrate to the most remote 

 shooting-cabins in the heart of the hills ; they are 

 to be found comfortably established by mountain- 

 lochs and moorland-tarns far distant from agri- 

 cultural activities ; in fact, it would be difficult 

 to find any spot within the British Isles upon 

 which the gray rat has not as yet obtruded 

 its presence. Yet these millions, spread all over 

 the country to the loneliest and wildest corners, 

 are merely the overflow from our cities. Were 

 it not that the great centres of population already 

 harbour all the rats they can feed, there would 

 be no country rats. Were all the urban rats 

 destroyed by plague or by some other means, the 

 country rats would throng back into the cities to 

 take their place. The thought is rather a startling 

 one Great Britain is to-day so overwhelmed with 

 rats that their teeming millions are crowded into 

 the most distant corners of the island in order that 

 all may find the wherewithal to live ! This para- 

 graph should be borne in mind in reading later 

 the estimates by authorities of the rat population 

 of Great Britain, for, whereas it may be a compara- 

 tively simple matter to arrive at a roughly approxi- 

 mate estimate of the rat population of our cities, 

 he would be a bold man, rather than a wise one, 

 who attempted even to guess at the rat population 

 of country areas. Everywhere where the plough 

 has turned the earth rats may be seen in scores 

 about every storage building at the fall of dusk, 

 and the scene is repeated even in the lonely glens 

 and corries where the buzzard and the peregrine 

 still hold their own. Can it be doubted for one 

 moment that the gray rat, an alien to our shores, 

 and two centuries ago unknown, is to-day over- 



