DIETETICS OF RATS. 
61 
ible. Some idea mny be formed of their immense swarms 
from the fact, that on a single plantation no less a number 
tlian 30,000 were destoyed in one year. Traps of various 
kinds are set to catch them ; poison is sometimes resorted 
to for killing them ; as also terriers and ferrets sometimes to 
hunt them out ; nevertheless their numbers seem undi- 
minished, so far at least as can be judged from the ravages 
they commit. 
It is a fact well authenticated, that rats prefer mild 
Wiltshire breakfast bacon, to lean^ salt Irish ; and as for 
hams, in the absence of prime Westphalia, they have no objec- 
tion to put up with good Yorkshire. Then their liking for 
cheese is so well known that it requires but few remarks to 
substantiate it. As regards this article, the stomachs of 
rats are of a most accommodating character. They are not 
particular whether it be Stilton ; — good old Cheshire, or 
Oloucester, single or double, all are equally welcome ; or, in 
the absence of more fancy cheeses, they have no objections to 
:finish off their meal with a piece of dumpling Dutch. 
I have been informed by cheesemongers, that rats will 
frequently drill holes through the flooring beneath large 
Cheshire or other cheeses, and then eat their way into them, 
and thus they will frequently consume pounds and pounds 
in a night or two ; nor is it an uncommon occurrence, they 
tell me, to find a large cheese with the inside scooped en- 
tirely out, leaving the rind a mere empty worthless shell. 
I have heard a curious instance of seven rats working a 
Cheshire cheese-trap for their own destruction. It has been 
remarked by an eminent physician, that great eaters dig 
their gi-aves with their teeth ! How far this may be correct, 
I will leave others to decide ; but, certain it was, that the 
rats I speak of dug theirs with their teeth. Four or five 
large Cheshire cheeses were placed on each other in a store- 
room, and the rats beneath the flooring drilled a hole 
through the boards, and so worked and ate their way into 
the bottom cheese. One night, however, it appears that, 
while they were busily engaged, the walls of the cheese, 
which had been rendered so weak and thin by the rats 
within, gave way, and down came the pile upon them. On 
the following morning, when the men removed the pile, they 
