342 
NOTES TO THE 
&c. The wild boar is swift on foot, and is a splendid leaper and 
swimmer, and never cuts liis throat in the water. Indeed, that 
is as much a vulgar error as that birds sleep with their heads 
under their wing, or that cats suck children's breath. It is 
generally imagined that pigs are eating roots, when a slovenly 
farmer, having neglected to have rings put in their snouts, they 
are seen ploughing up the grass. I have watched them often, and 
I have found that they are then feeding upon the earthworm, 
and I believe that Avorms constitute a great portion of the food 
of the pig in its wild state. In Germany they are confined in 
parks along with deer, and in severe weather food is given them. 
" I cannot personally say how long the domestic pig lives. 
Cuvier and, I think, others say that it has been known to 
reach twenty years. My tame Avild boar sow was fourteen years 
old, May, 1875, and died a few months afterwards. My domestic 
pig has had as many as twenty- one pigs at a litter, and fourteen 
is not uncommon." 
Eats and Mice, p. 32. — In England we have three distinct 
varieties of rat — the common house or barn rat (originally the 
Norway rat), the old black English rat, now almost extinct, and 
the water rat or water-vole. The Norwegian rat is said to have 
been imported in the holds of ships, and to have successfully 
invaded tlie territory of his black brother and completely dispos- 
sessed him. The common house rat has of late years increased 
enormously, owing, it is said, to the use of the steam threshing- 
machine, which in three days threshes out the whole stack 
yard of the farmer, the rats migrating bodily to quieter 
quarters, unmolested and unnoticed in the general hurry — 
whereas in former days when each stack was dealt with in 
detail, and threshed out with the flail, the farmers' men and 
dogs effected an easy haul of the marauders. In the spring 
and summer, the house rat uses the river bank and water- 
courses in common with the water vole, and as he swims 
and dives well, though he cannot continue long under water 
he gives rise to much confusion and many errors concern- 
ing the two species. Apart from many other distinguishing 
marks, the coat or fur of the house rat is entirely different 
from that of the water rat — the fur of the water rat being 
velvety and long. The water rat, save where he bores through 
water-dams and interferes with drainage, is harmless, living 
principally on herbage and roots. In Ireland this variety is 
said to be unknown, and the only rat ever seen in that country 
is the common house-rat, which, however, by its numbers quite 
makes up for the absence of the other. 
