one; cat and twenty-four rats, the; result of fumigating the cabin of a 



steamship 



This cat, an exceptionally good ratter, was supposed to have kept the cabin free from 

 rats. In fumigating she was overlooked. The fumigation of the steamship Minnehaha 

 yielded a bag of 1,700 rats (see pages 3-8). 



er's substance. In barns and stables they 

 boldly rob cattle, horses, and chickens of 

 their feed, frequently exacting heavy toll. 



Poultry ranches often suffer extremely 

 heavy losses, rats sometimes killing hun- 

 dreds of young chickens, turkeys, ducks, 

 and geese, and even the full-grown fowls. 



A commission merchant in Washing- 

 ton stored 100 dozen eggs in a covered 

 wooden tub in his warehouse and at the 

 end of two weeks discovered that the rats 

 had made a hole in the side of the tub 

 near the cover and had carried away 

 more than 70 dozen eggs without leaving 

 any shells or other sign that a single egg 

 had' been broken. The - ingenuity rats 

 show in stealing eggs is notorious. It is 

 a mystery how they manage to carry 

 away unbroken such smooth, round ob- 

 jects, even taking them up stairways and 

 over other obstacles. 



The number of useful insect - eating 

 birds nesting on the ground or in low 

 bushes which fall victims to rats is ex- 

 tremely large and is one of the many 

 kinds of injury done by these pernicious 

 animals which cannot be computed. Prob- 

 ably few frequenters of the countryside 

 have returned to look into a bird's nest 

 to observe its condition without many 

 times finding it destroyed and fragments 

 of egg shells lying about. Unquestion- 

 ably a large percentage of such nests lo- 

 cated in the neighborhood of buildings 

 have been raided by rats. 



On one of the small Danish islands it 



has been authentically recorded that the 

 progeny of a single pair of rats, which 

 escaped from captivity, in two years time 

 exterminated a great colony of birds for 

 which the island had been noted. 



Fresh fruits and vegetables are de- 

 stroyed in the greenhouse, garden, and 

 field ; also during transportation on boats 

 and cars and in markets. Cultivated 

 flowers also are destroyed in greenhouses 

 and gardens, as well as after they are cut 

 for the florist. 



MARKETS, RESTAURANTS, AND SHIPS 

 THEIR FAVORITE ABODE 



All ships are known to be infested by 

 rats, and the number killed by fumigation 

 on a single vessel has been known to 

 reach 1,700. Taking into consideration 

 the vast number of vessels engaged in 

 commerce throughout the world, in all of 

 which rats are continually destroying 

 food and other property, it is evident that 

 the sum lost in this way is enormous. 



One steamer on a 29-day voyage from 

 India to Antwerp had 44,000 out of 46,- 

 OOO sacks of grain cut open, entailing an 

 estimated loss of $2,200. 



A large milling company in Louisville, 

 Ky., recently asked advice as to controlling 

 the rats and mice on their premises, stat- 

 ing that it has cost them $3,000 a year to 

 repair grain sacks damaged by rodents. 



The kitchens and store-rooms of hotels 

 and restaurants are favorite resorts for 

 these pests, which waste and defile far 



