The Atlantic Slope Naturalist. 



Vol. 1. 



NARBERTH, PA., MAY AND JUNE, 1903. 



No. 2. 



Cosmopolitan Nuisances. 

 By Morris Gibbs, M. D., Kalamazoo, Mich. 



There are many nuisances and pests in 

 all parts of the world, but fortunitely 

 most of them are local, or at least not of 

 general dispersion. Many, like the locust 

 of the old world, the so-called Kansas 

 grasshopper, and the Lemming rat of 

 Northern and Eastern Europe, are peri- 

 odical pests. Then there are the pests 

 which come to us, or we might with more 

 propriety say, have been introduced. 

 Strange to say these nuisances have al- 

 ways proven the most troublesome. The 

 Mongoose, a species belonging to the 

 weasel family, and native to North 

 Africa, has been introduced into some of 

 the Caribbean islands for the purpose of 

 lessening the great number of noxious 

 snakes, a work to which it is well quali- 

 fied. But in its zeal for extermination, 

 the creature has as well greatly lessened 

 the valuable game birds, particularly in 

 the island of Martinique. This animal, if 

 given the transportation, would undoubt- 

 edly overrun the whole world in a short 

 time, or at least inside the tropics. 



Then there is the European House 

 Sparrow, generally known as the English 

 Sparrow; a bird which has extended its 

 limit to the confines of the civilized East- 

 ern Continent. Introduced into America, 

 it has already become a great nuisance on 

 this Continent as it has ever been in 

 Europe, Asia and Africa. The gratifica- 

 tion of some crank's whim in importing 

 this pertinacious interloper has resulted in 

 the annual destruction of millions of dol- 

 lars worth of grain, besides which we are 

 annoyed by the presence of the pest, and 

 as well, our familiar birds of the door- 

 yard and garden are driven out of the 



town and city, and often from the orchard 

 and grove. 



But though the sparrow bids fair to 

 spread all over the civilized world, and 

 has largely accomplished this universal 

 presence, still it is as nothing compared 

 to the world-wide destruction of property 

 accomplished by that worst of all nuis- 

 ances — the common rat. 



Rats and mice are "cosmopolitan" 

 pests, and are found wherever ships visit 

 a port; and they are found in abundance 

 at several points within the arctic circle, 

 and multiply as well throughout the tem- 

 perate and torrid zones, and to the south- 

 ern extremities of both Continents. It is 

 reasonable to suppose that the well known 

 common rat was not indigenous to Europe, 

 but just where they came from will never 

 be known, for like the horse and camel 

 they are now only found as followers of 

 man. It has been shown that a black rat 

 appeared in Germany, and was followed 

 by the brown rat, known also as the Nor- 

 way rat. The stronger Brown rat quickly 

 exterminated the Black rat, which is now 

 rarely seen. The Black rat was known in 

 the thirteenth century, and its devasta- 

 tions became so pronounced that Bishop 

 Auton excommunicated it from the Cath- 

 olic Church in the fifteenth century (his- 

 tory). It is quite probable that the Black 

 rat came from Persia, where it is still 

 found in prodigious numbers. Up to the 

 first half of the last century it reigned 

 alone in Europe. 



The naturalist Pallas first describes the 

 Brown rat, and says that it appeared in 

 Europe in 1727, coming from southern 

 Asia in immense hordes just after an 

 earthquake. It rapidly spread westward, 

 appearing in England in 1732. In 1755 it 



