28 



Rats and Mice 



This want of unanimity of action is much to be deplored, and is 

 very unfair to those who have wihingly expended much." (7, 

 P- 84.) 



Such facts lead us to conclude that spasmodic, individual, or 

 purely local attempts at rat extermination can bring no real relief. 

 The work of destruction, to succeed, must be undertaken simul- 

 taneously all over the country; it must be systematically done 

 with the approval and co-operation of all; and it must be 

 continued so long as a breeding stock of rats remains in this 

 island. The last point is of essential importance. It may be said 

 at once that the final stage of such a war on rats will be the most 

 difficult and, in visible results, the least spectacular of all ; but a 

 premature cessation of our destructive efforts would be followed 

 by a speedy recurrence of the present evil ; our money and labour 

 would have been expended in vain. 



It is, of course, not within the province of the writer to suggest 

 the means by which a work of such magnitude and importance 

 can be organized or financed, nor how general co-operation can 

 be secured ; those are questions entirely for the public and Parha- 

 ment. The writer has performed his duty by pointing out the 

 urgent necessity for some such action against the rat population ; 

 these animals are at once a reproach to civilization and a menace 

 to humanity. 



EAT-PEEVENTION AND EAT-EXTEEMINATION. 



The country owes its rat population in the first place to the 

 ports. The ports and the towns feed the rural districts with rats ; 

 waterways form natural high roads for rats ; human traffic, water- 

 borne and land-borne, greatly assists their dispersal. The key to 

 the problem lies in our towns, for the rural districts can never be 

 kept permanently free from rats while the towns are infested. 



The problem is, however, most difficult of solution in the 

 towns; because here the rat population attains its maximum 

 density, and finds food and shelter in abundance. Here also our 

 choice of means of destruction is limited practically to traps and to 

 attacks with the help of dogs, ferrets and cats ; poison and virus, 

 because of the danger to health which their use involves, can be but 

 seldom used in towns. Preventive measures must play the chief 

 part in towns, active destruction, although most useful when com- 

 bined with prevention, being quite unable to eradicate urban rats. 



The chief Preventive Measures are : — 



