22 THE BROWN RAT IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Sugar cane. — In nearly all countries that produce cane sugar the 

 planters experience serious loss from rat depredations. The animals 

 cut down and eat the ripening canes, usually selecting a fresh one 

 at each attack. Recent complaints of serious losses to cane planters 

 in Porto Rico and Louisiana have been received by the Biological 

 Survey. 



POULTRY AND EGGS. 



The depredations of rats upon poultry are a source of serious loss. 

 The amount of damage varies with the abundance of rats and the care 

 taken to exclude them from the poultry yard; but the total for the 

 entire country is always great. The loss of poultry due to rats is 

 probably greater than that inflicted by foxes, minks, weasels, skunks, 

 hawks, and owls combined. Since harm is usually done at night 

 and the actual culprit is unseen, conclusions as to the identity of 

 the marauder are often mere guesswork, and much of the damage 

 done by rats is blamed upon other animals. Not long since, in a 

 published account of depredations on poultry, the damage was 

 attributed to a skunk. The statement was made that both eggs 

 and young chicks were taken from under a sitting hen without 

 disturbing her. This is a trick peculiar to the rat, and it is evident 

 that a mistake was made as to the identity of the thief. 



Where rats are numerous in springtime, they often prey upon 

 young chicks, capturing them in the nest and in and around the 

 coops. I have known them to take nearly all the chicks on a large 

 poultry ranch, and, in the same neighborhood and over a large ter- 

 ritory, to destroy nearly 50 percent of the season's hatching. Young 

 ducks, turkeys, and pigeons are equally liable to attack, and where 

 rats are numerous are safe only in rat-proof coops. 



A writer in a western agricultural paper states that in 1904 rats 

 robbed him of an entire summer's hatching of three or four hundred 

 chicks. a A correspondent of another journal says, "Rats destroyed 

 enough grain and poultry on this place in one season to pay our 

 taxes for three years." 6 When it is remembered that the poultry 

 and eggs produced each year from the farms of the United States 

 have a value of over $600,000,000, it will be seen that even a small 

 percentage of loss aggregates a large sum. 



Rats destroy also many eggs both on farms and in cities. Fresh 

 as well as incubated eggs are eaten by these rodents. Commission 

 men and grocers complain much of depredations upon packed eggs. 

 Those at the top of a case are broken by these animals, and parts 

 of the yelks run down and stain the unbroken ones. Often, however, 

 rats carry away eggs without breaking them, and display much 

 ingenuity in getting them over obstacles, as up or down a stairway. 



o Homemaker (Des Moines, Iowa), May 27, 1907. 

 t> Mo. Valley Farmer, April, 1907. 



