626 MURID^— EPIMYS 



property annually. The real numbers of rats are probably not 

 realised by ordinary people. In 1901, about 37,000 were killed 

 on a farm of 2000 acres near Chichester,^ and over 1 2,000,000, 

 mostly of the E. rattus group, were killed in certain parts of 

 India ^ in the years 1878-79. Dr A. E. Shipley,' assuming 

 the rat population of Great Britain and Ireland to be about 

 40,000,000, or one for every human being and slightly less than 

 one per acre, estimated the total annual loss occasioned to us 

 by rats at the huge sum of ;^i 0,000, 000, while Sir James 

 Crichton-Browne* has even placed the damage at ;^i 5,000,000 

 per annum. 



Sometimes rats cause destructive fires by stealing and 

 accidentally igniting lucifer matches,^ or by gnawing through 

 gas pipes they give rise to inflammable leaks ® or asphyxia of 

 the human inhabitants.'' Sometimes they destroy the insulating 

 covering of wires used for electric lighting,* which may again 

 result in conflagrations. 



Inasmuch as rats are quite palatable animals,' it might 

 be thought that all flesh feeders ^^ could live upon them ; 

 but their ferocity and vigour in defence is so great 

 that most carnivorous creatures, though glad to catch the 

 young, pause to reckon the consequences before attacking a full 

 grown rat — if she be a doe with young her prowess is increased 

 tenfold. ^'^ Only strong dogs, ferrets, or cats, will face rats, but 



' Field, 27th Sept. 1902, 545. 



^ Brit. Med. Journ., i6th September 1905, 623. ^ Shipley, op. cit., 66. 



* /oum. Incorp. Soc. for the Destruct. of Vermin, i., 74, October 1908 ; for other 

 countries, see Lantz, op. cit, who calculates the annual loss to the citizens of the 

 United States of America as |2o,ooo,ooo = ;£4,ooo,ooo. 



^ As on H.M.S. Revenge; see Hardwicke's Science Gossip, v., 142, 1869. 



* As in Phillip's warehouse. Church Street, London ; si^& Journal cit., x., 73, 1874. 

 ' E. Newman, Zoologist, 1875, 4378. 



^ Lantz., op. cit. 



" Owen Jones states that rat-pie tastes like rabbit if made from well-fed animals. 



'» For a horse killing a rat, see S. B. Wells, Field, ist June 1912, mo. 



" Cocks {in lit.) says:— "While young rats are useful food for nearly any 

 carnivorous mammal or bird, tough old ones are unwholesome for more delicate 

 feeders, such as Wild Cats or many birds of prey. On one occasion more than twenty 

 years ago, I put a fine old rat alive in, for the supper of a correspondingly fine male 

 Wild Cat. Within a very few minutes the rat disappeared. On the sixth day 

 afterwards, my man opened the door of the cat's ' bed-sitting room,' and found the 

 rat there perfectly well. For five nights the cat and rat had slept side by side, and 

 the rat had doubtless maintained itself by scraps from the Wild Cat's daily meals." 



