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tation of being the greatest traveler of them all. He almost invari- 

 ably predominated among those killed by fumigation on shipboard. 

 That he finds life on shipboard easy and the conditions satisfactory is 

 proved by the numbers that are destroyed from tune to time by 

 fumigation. While in charge of the outgoing quarantine work in 

 San Francisco the chief engineer of a small lumber carrier called to 

 book his vessel for fumigation.. The vessel was small, only 260 tons, 

 and carried nothing but lumber and her own ship's stores, but the 

 chief declared she was overrun with rats, and to prove it showed 

 where they had eaten the patches from his shoes. He declared they 

 robbed him of his sandwich when he came off watch, and requested 

 me to give her a thorough fumigation. This was done. The next 

 morning the agent of the vessel phoned to ask how I measured rats, 

 stating that on this vessel they had collected "a barrelful and seven." 

 Three hundred and ten on a little vessel of only 260 tons burthen. 



On another vessel after one fumigation 100 were collected imme- 

 diately after fumigation, but a few days later, when the vessel was 

 undergoing extensive repairs, 425 others were found a total of 525 

 on one small vessel. These numbers are small, however, when com- 

 pared with the results obtained on others, i. e., on grain-carrying 

 vessels. For instance, a vessel was fumigated some years since in 

 Bombay where 1,300 were destroyed at one time, and the Minnehciha, 

 a new vessel only nine months in commission, on fumigation in Lon- 

 don, England, in May, 1901, yielded a bag of 1,700 rats. 



ADAPTABILITY OF THE RAT TO HIS SURROUNDINGS. 



In addition to his qualities as a sailor and tight-rope walker, the rat 

 has the power of adapting himself to most unusual conditions and 

 surroundings. At the beginning of the outgoing work in San Fran- 

 cisco it was urged that rats either could not or would not live on any 

 part of tank ships engaged exclusively in carrying oil, owing to the 

 fumes and vapors that permeated the entire vessel. This statement 

 was unquestionably correct for those compartments in which the oil 

 itself was stored or carried. It was not true, however, for the super- 

 structure of these vessels, for on one of the oil carriers 60 rats were 

 found after one fumigation, and of the thirty or more vessels of this 

 class that were regularly fumigated in San Francisco, although the 

 odors of oil or gasoline were quite strong in the living compartments, 

 not one was found that did not harbor rats. Still more remarkable, 

 as illustrating the rat's adaptability, was the fact that from the large 

 refrigerating plants which some vessels carried and in which fumiga- 

 tion had not been practiced for a long time rats were obtained that 

 had grown a fur an inch and a half long to protect themselves from 

 the cold. 



