PART XII. 

 OUR FOUR-FOOTED NEIGHBORS. 



HOW RATS MANAGE. 



1. It is easy to show that the rat is one of the wisest of 

 animals. Just think how closely he sticks to man, though 

 man tries day and night to get rid of him. Eats always 

 stay with us, never are stained, always look sleek and com- 

 fortable, and always seem to feel more at home in our 

 houses than we ourselves feel. What seems more hopeless 

 than a rat on board a ship, with the ocean all around him, 

 and not a friend to protect him, and every human being in 

 the vessel ready to kill him if he shows his head ? And 

 yet rats thrive on board ship better than men do, and they 

 increase so fast that, when the vessel reaches port, it may 

 have to be deserted for a time by all on board in order to 

 drive out the rats by smoke or steam. r 



2. On the return of the English man-of-war Valiant 

 from Havana, in 176C, the rats were found to have so in- 

 creased that they ate a hundred pounds of biscuit in a day ; 

 so the ship was smoked out, and for days together they 

 collected daily six basketfuls of rats. In the Arctic 

 regions, where Dr. Kane and his crew could hardly keep 

 themselves alive, the rats constantly multiplied, and the 

 dogs were afraid to go into the hold of the vessel. The 

 crew stayed on deck one terribly cold night and tried to 



