74 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



but only in case of no other food being at hand, as a 

 large number of these little creatures are wanted to 

 satisfy the hunger of a black fellow. 



Bats. — Williams, in his Account of China, tells us that 

 rats are very abundant, and furnish the common people 

 with meat. Rats and mice, that shun the light of day, are 

 not only eaten now by the Mongol races, but by other 

 more civilised people. The Mongol fattens them like 

 pigs, butchers them with care, and carries them on long 

 white poles to market. 



The wild cat is a very dainty dish among the West 

 Indian negroes.* The negroes in Brazil, like the abori- 

 gines in Australia, eat every rat they can catch. 



It is a remarkable fact that there are no rats in the 

 islands of the Pacific Ocean. Repeated attempts have 

 been made to acclimatise the rodents there, as the 

 flesh is much relished by the natives as an article of 

 food, but the attempts thus far have failed, for they 

 invariably die of consumption. 



The mouse, to the Esquimaux epicure, is a real honne 

 louche, and if he can catch half-a-dozen he runs a piece 

 of horn or twig through them, in the same manner as 

 the Leadenhall poulterers will larks ; and, without stop- 

 ping to skin or divest them of their entrails, broils them 

 over the fire, and considers them a tit-bit. 



I do not see why field rats should not be well tasted 

 and wholesome meat, seeing that their food is entirely 

 vegetable, and that they are clean, sleek, and plump. 



The negroes on the West India plantations will often 

 roast the cane-piece rats in the stoke-holes of the sugar- 

 boiling houses, and those who have tasted them declare 

 them to be very good eating. 



So fat do the rats become in the West Indies, from 

 feeding on the sugar canes, that most of the blacks 

 esteem them highly, and, with the addition of chillies 

 and other spiceries, make of them a delicate fricassee, 

 not to be surpassed by a dish of frogs. As there is a rat- 



* Brown's " History of Jamaica." 



