VII MIGRATION OF RATS 79 



soft substance which she can find ; pieces of lace, cloth, and 

 above all, paper, seem to be her favourite lining. 



The natural destroyers in this country of this obnoxious 

 animal seem to be, the hen-harrier, the falcon, the long-eared 

 and the tawny owls, cats, weasels, and stoats ; and, ante omnes, 

 boys of every age an'd grade wage war to the knife against rats, 

 wherever and whenever they can find them. 



As for rat-catchers — find me an honest one, and I will 

 forfeit my name. I would as soon admit a colony of rats 

 themselves, as one of these gentry to my house, — not but what 

 I have amused myself by learning slight tricks of the trade 

 from one of these representatives of roguery and unblushing 

 effrontery, but, fas est et ab^ hoste doceri. Rats swarm about 

 the small towns in this country where the herrings are cured, 

 living amongst the stones of the harbours and rocks on. the 

 shore, and issuing out in great numbers towards nightfall, to 

 feed on the stinking remains of the fish. 



They have been seen migrating from these places at the 

 end of the fishing-season in compact bodies and in immense 

 nurribers. They then spread themselves, an irwading host, 

 amongst the farm-houses and stack-yards in the neighbourhood ; 

 repairing again to the coast for the benefit of a fish diet and 

 sea air, when their wonderful instinct tells them that the fishing- 

 season has again commenced. But I really must finish the 

 subject, or my reader will be as tired as I am myself of these 

 accounts of the unprincipled greediness and voracity of the 

 Hanoverian or Grey Rat, who has made for itself a home in 

 this country, after nearly extirpating the original indigenous 

 and much less vile race of British rats. 



