426 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



in burrows which it digs in the ground. Its 

 nests are soft, warm masses of fibrous mate- 

 rial which is secured by raids on any available 

 supply of cotton, wool, or fabrics, which they 

 cut into shreds for the purpose. 



In these retreats it has several litters a year, 

 averaging about ten young, but exceptional 

 • cases of more than twenty young have been 

 recorded. The young begin to breed when less 

 than six months old." The size and number of 

 litters increase with the food supply, and under 

 favorable conditions rats soon become intoler- 

 able pests. 



In Jamaica and the Hawaiian Islands rats 

 became so numerous that sugar-cane and other 

 plantations were at one time threatened with 

 complete destruction. To save the crops the 

 mongoose was introduced, but after checking 

 the rats in Jamaica these curious little mam- 

 mals in turn became a pest which it appears 

 hopeless to control. 



In the Hawaiian Islands the mongoose re- 

 duced the number of rats, but the survivors 

 promptly took up their abodes in the tree tops, 

 where they now live as completely arboreal 

 lives as squirrels, safe from their ground-in- 

 habiting enemy. 



During a two weeks' campaign against rats 



; in the sewers of Paris 600,000 were killed, and 



f on a rice plantation of about 1,200 acres in 



Georgia 30,000 were destroyed in one season. 



In Illinois 3,435 were killed on a farm in one 



month. 



One of the most curious chapters in the life 

 of this hardy beast is now developing in the 

 far island of South Georgia, on the border of 

 the Antarctic, east of Cape Horn. On this 

 island, which has a cold and stormy summer 

 and nine months of rigorous winter, several 

 whaling stations have been established. For 

 years great numbers of whale carcasses have 

 drifted ashore each season and, half rotting, 

 half refrigerated, have furnished a never-fail- 

 ing food supply for brown rats that have land- 

 ed from the ships. With such abundant food 

 they are reported to have increased until they 

 now exist there literally in millions. They 

 make their nests in the tussocks of grass and 

 peat and swarm along well-marked trails they 

 have made on the mountain sides. 



In the trenches along the battle front in 

 France they have become extremely abundant 

 and troublesome, and in England have multi- 

 plied until the Board of Agriculture is recom- 

 mending efforts to destroy them as a menace 

 to the public welfare through their waste of 

 food supplies. 



On farms, in addition to destroying growing 

 and stored crops, they kill great numbers of 

 young chickens, turkeys, and other poultry, and 

 create havoc with such ground - frequenting 

 game as pheasants. At all times brown rats 

 are more or less carnivorous, and when sev- 

 eral are confined in a cage the stronger will 

 soon kill and devour the weaker. 



In city department stores and large hotels 

 they often cause thousands of dollars damage 

 yearly in single establishments. An English 

 organization for their destruction estimated in 



njoS that, outside the towns and shipping, in 

 Great Britain and Ireland they caused annual 

 losses of about $73,000,000. 



When there is a sudden diminution in the 

 food supply, an abundance of which has caused 

 a great increase in the rat population, the rats 

 migrate into other districts, sometimes in enor- 

 mous numbers. These migrations usually oc- 

 cur at night, and many are matters of history 

 in Europe and in the United States. 



A witness of one of these migrations in Illi- 

 nois in 1903 reported that one moonlight night 

 as he was passing along the roads he heard a 

 rustling in a field near by and soon saw cross- 

 ing the road in front of him a multitude of 

 rats extending as far as he could see. The 

 following year the invaders became a plague 

 in that district. At times of food scarcity rats 

 become extremely bold and aggressive. With- 

 out hesitation they swim streams encountered 

 in their wanderings and at times will even at- 

 tack man. 



Owing to their great numbers, universal dis- 

 tribution, and destructiveness, brown rats are 

 the worst mammal pest known to mankind. 

 Through their habit of living in sewers, among 

 the offal of slaughter-houses, and in garbage 

 heaps, from which they invade dwellings and 

 storehouses, they pollute and spoil even more 

 foodstuffs than they eat. 



In addition, they are known carriers of some 

 of the worst and most dreaded diseases, as 

 bubonic plague, trichinosis, and septic pneu- 

 monia; while there is little doubt that they 

 spread scarlet fever, typhoid, diphtheria, and 

 other contagious maladies. Bubonic plague is 

 mainly dependent upon rats for its dissemina- 

 tion and has been carried by them to more than 

 fifty countries, including the United States. In 

 India more than two million people have died 

 in one year from this rat-conveyed disease. 



Although rats are abhorred by man, yet they 

 have been for ages so closely associated with 

 most of his activities that they have long had 

 their place in Old World literature. Among 

 other instances, many readers will recall Victor 

 Hugo's gruesome account of Jean Val jean's 

 fight with the rats in the sewers of Paris. In 

 England and on the continent rat catching has 

 been a regular trade and dogs have been spe- 

 cially bred for use in their pursuit. 



Rats are loathsome vermin which civilized 

 man should eliminate with the other evils of 

 his semi-barbaric days which he is leaving be- 

 hind. One might still wish that in many places 

 a modern "Pied Piper of Hamelin" would ap- 

 pear and rid the people of these pests. This 

 is not necessary, however, if the public will 

 cease to take their presence as a matter of 

 course. Their exclusion from buildings and 

 destruction are merely matters of good house- 

 keeping, both personal and communal. 



Rats can be banished by removing or de- 

 stroying trash heaps and similar harboring 

 places and bv the simple expedient of rat- 

 proofing buildings, especially dwellings, gran- 

 aries, warehouses, and other places where food 

 supplies are stored. 



These precautionary measures should be sup- 



