1879.] Rev. S. B. Fairbank—The Ravayes of Rats and Mice. 143 
have seen native women screw their hands into bangles barely over 
two inches in inside diameter. Those with the perforation only 1} in. 
in diameter were probably in the course of manufacture. The peculiar conical 
nature of the orifice on both sides in these specimens is due to the necessarily 
rotary motion imparted to the borer by the hand and arm. These holes 
were usually begun on both sides, for the reason that they would be easier 
to enlarge when so made. 
XVII.—The Ravages of Rats and Mice in the Dakhan during the Harvest 
of 1878-79.— By the Rev. 8S. B. Farrpank, D. D. 
Some years ago, when itinerating in the vicinity of the Pera River, 
near Ahmednagar, I was astonished at the stories told me about the destruc- 
tion of whole fields of Jawdri (Holeus sorghum) by rats. I went to the 
fields, and, though it was after the harvest so that I could not see the 
progress of devastation, I found the ground thickly dotted with small holes, 
and marked in all directions by the paths the rats had made, principally in 
passing from one hole to another. I tried to get specimens of the rats, but 
failed, as I was then unacquainted with their habits, or perhaps they had 
gone elsewhere, as the people claimed they had. They must have been the 
Mettad rats (Golunda mettada) of whose ravages Sir Walter Elliot wrote 
fifty-three years ago. 
Since I saw those fields I have sometimes heard of injury done to crops 
by ats, but of nothing very extensive, till their ravages that began at the 
end of 1878, when the Rabi (winter) crops began to ripen, attracted the 
attention of everybody. There had been destruction before, but when, 
daily, large quantities of green Sorghum stalks were brought to Nagar for 
sale, and it was known that they had the night before been cut down by 
rats, everybody wakened up to the importance of the subject. At first stalks 
were cut down here and there in the fields, but more were cut as the days 
went on. And afterwards fields were suddenly attacked and destroyed in a 
few nights, When food became scarce where they were, the rats gathered their 
forces and an army of them invaded fields that had not been harmed before and 
quickly destroyed them. In some places they did not cut down the stalks, 
but climbed them and gnawed off the ears of grain. Some of the ears thus 
cut off were eaten or partially eaten where they fell, and some were hauled 
into their holes by the rats and stored there. A good deal of the grain 
thus stored was dug up and used for food. The farmers, finding that the 
rats would not allow their grain to ripen, gathered as many as they could 
18 
