35i Ground Vermin. 



If there be a particular breeding- season, it is from the 

 beginning of spring to the commencement of winter, about 

 three-fourths of the year. The season is, however, 

 indefinite, for all through the winter young ones are met 

 with in odd places, generally in a conveniently warm 

 situation. If we may judge from tame ones, the Brown 

 Rat must be an animal of wonderful fecundity, as it 

 breeds six times in the year. 



Rats which form their nests in and about hedgerows, on 

 the banks at the water-side, and about fields, construct a 

 shelter of a different kind from those whose haunts are in 

 buildings. The former first select a secluded situation 

 where warmth, dryness, and other conditions necessary to 

 a rat's nest are present, and burrow, scoop out, or adapt 

 a suitable hole, at the far end of which, where the passage 

 is widened out, the female forms a nest, employing various 

 substances, such as soft leaves, dry grass, ferns, moss, 

 &c., together with any wool dropped from sheep. These 

 are neatly manipulated into a nest of circular shape, and 

 if not wholly covered, is so deep in its construction as 

 nearly to close over the dam and her numerous progeny. 



In town or country houses, in corn-ricks or fodder 

 stored in barns, or in and about the miscellaneous 

 collections which often litter up granaries and outhouses, 

 on farms, or in the last season's clip of wool, the rats 

 seek for pieces of rag of various colours, paper, fur, 

 feathers, &c., wherewith to form and line their nests, 

 which, however, are of the same shape as those fre- 

 quenting banks, &c. In these the young are reared until 

 sufficiently mature to provide for themselves, which is at 

 about two months and a half to three months old, when 

 most of them are themselves able to breed. The first 

 and two or three following broods are not very numerous, 

 ranging mostly from four to six or seven, but as soon as 



