lO 



Rats and Mice 



friendly and sociably disposed towards each other. New-comers 

 are received as comrades, and if more than three be present in a 

 cage or sack a man may put his hand in among them and handle 

 them with impunity. In some circumstances, as when impelled 

 by hunger, they are extremely bold and will attack man and other 

 large mammals ; they have thus been known to attack and kill a 

 man who descended into a mine which had been shut down for 

 ten days, to attack sleeping persons, to gnaw the toes off lepers 

 too weak to resist, and to mutilate corpses in a mortuary ; attacks 

 upon the feet of living elephants, and upon the ears, backs, and 

 teats of live pigs are also recorded. Some years ago a large 

 number of rat-infested houses were demolished in London. As 

 soon as the buildings were deserted and the food supplies ceased, 

 the rats swarmed into a neighbouring restaurant ; here their com- 

 petition for food became so keen that they would sometimes jump 

 upon the luncheon tables, seize and bolt away with morsels of 

 food from the plates of the customers. In another restaurant 

 hard by, the writer once saw three rats emerge from a chimney 

 one after another and jump on to the floor across a large and 

 fiercely glowing fire ; but this was towards the end of the day 

 when all was quiet. 



Eats hunt small vertebrates with great zeal, and sometimes 

 show such ferocity as to suggest a lust for killing. Young i>abbits 

 in warrens, and the eggs and young of game birds, fowls, and 

 ducks are frequently devoured. The rat frequently shows the 

 greatest cleverness in stealing eggs, taking them from under a 

 sitting hen without disturbing her, or from packing cases without 

 breaking them, and removing them often over a considerable 

 distance and many obstacles to the burrow. *Eats soon find their 

 way to the places where domestic animals are fed, and become 

 regular visitors; thus, they used to swim across the Eegent's 

 Canal every evening to steal a share of the provisions supplied to 

 the inmates of the Zoological Gardens. 



BEEEDING HABITS OF EATS. 



Eats and mice are, as is well known, very prolific. They 

 attain sexual maturity long before they have completed their 

 growth. Thus, the Plague Commission found the minimum weight 

 for sexually mature individuals to be at least 70 grammes (about 

 21 oz.) in B. rattus (at Bombay), and at least 100 grammes (about 



