THE. RAT 



i6s 



round against its sharp incisor teeth, just as our common English 

 squirrel will do with the kernel of a nut. 



THE RAT 



Many of the animals about which we have hitherto been 

 reading are very useful to us. Now we come to one which often 

 does a very great deal of damage, and is of no appreciable use 

 to us, namely, the Rat. In our barns, granaries, corn-stacks, 



Brown Rat attacking Black Rat 



poultry-yards, and even in our gardens and houses, it is very 

 troublesome. And it increases in numbers so fast as to defy all 

 our efforts to keep it down. 



We have often seen in a farm-yard a stack of corn built, not 

 upon the ground, but upon supports, which are shaped much 

 like mushrooms. These are called "staddles", and are used to 

 prevent rats from climbing up into the stacks. 



Sometimes, however, a rat is brought from the fields in a sheaf 

 of corn, and so gets into the stack. But he cannot stay there 

 very long, for he soon becomes thirsty, and is obliged to leap 



