THE GRAY EAT. 301 



Unfortunately the female rat escaped us, though 

 the gardener discovered her nest, all ready for 

 young, when one day repairing a breach in the 

 garden wall. She too had her larder, containing 

 two adult sandpipers and their three pretty little 

 newly hatched chicks. These birds had built their 

 nest quite near the house, and, owing to their tame- 

 ness and their pretty habits, had much endeared 

 themselves to the household. We had, indeed, 

 watched them closely since their nesting activities 

 began, and it was with a sense of keen regret that 

 we learnt thus of the falling of the whole family to 

 so odious a trespasser. 



One big gray rat spent the summer two years in 

 succession in the bank-burrow of a water-vole on 

 the river Wharfe. Invariably this beast could be 

 seen within fifty feet of the burrow. It was often 

 astir during broad daylight, and on being disturbed 

 would take to the water and swim below the sur- 

 face till its burrow was gained, in exactly the same 

 manner as a water-vole. One evening, when fish- 

 ing, I caught the brute in my landing-net, but it 

 contrived to escape ; though the fright it received 

 evidently induced it to change its quarters, as it 

 was seen no more in that locality. Invariably the 

 summer quarters of gray rats that take to the 

 country are at the edge of water. 



DESTRUCTIVENESS. 



The destructiveness of the gray rat is too big a 

 subject to attempt to deal with in any exhaustive 

 way, and accordingly a few facts must suffice 

 to illustrate the point. A good deal has been 

 written of late setting forth actual figures of the 

 damage done by rats, and of the peril they present 

 in our midst by spreading disease through the 



