THE RAT. 



213 



Hercules himself, could he return to earth, would 

 have his hands full, were he to attempt to drive 

 this harpy back again to Stymphalus. It were loss 

 of time to dwell on its fecundity. Let any body 

 trace its movements in the cellar, the dairy, the 

 outhouse, and the barn, and he will be able to form 

 some notion of the number of hungry mouths 

 which we have to fill. Nine or ten young ones at 

 a time, twice or thrice during the year, are an 

 enormous increase, and must naturally recall to our 

 minds one of the many plagues which formerly 

 desolated the fertile land of Egypt. In the sum- 

 mer months it will take off to the fields, and rear 

 its young amongst the weeds which grow in the 

 hedgerows ; plundering, for their support, the birds' 

 nests with a ferocity scarcely conceivable in so small 

 an animal. 



Man has invented various instruments for its 

 destruction ; and what with these, and with poison, 

 added to the occasional assistance m\ hich he re- 

 ceives from his auxiliaries, the cat, ti?e dog, the 

 ow^l, the weasel, the ferret, and the fouuiart, he is 

 enabled, in some degree, to thin its numbers, and to 

 check its depredations. 



There are some localities, however, from which 

 it may be effectually ousted, provided you go the 

 right way to work. My own house, than which 

 none in Great Britain can have suffered more from 

 the plundering propensities of the Hanoverian rats, 

 is now completely free from their unwelcome pre- 

 sence. On my return to it in 1813, they absolutely 

 seemed to consider it their own property. They 

 p 3 



