PREDATORY HABITS OF THE RAT. 
69 
shire can vie with the rats of Nottinghamshire. Moreover, 
we may take it for granted, that the rats in every county 
throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and 
indeed every country and island in the known world, where 
British and French shipping have traded, can equal the rats 
of the forenamed counties, — all of which will, like bad men 
everywhere, commit their outrages anywhere, when time 
and opportunity offers. 
For twenty years, a gentleman residing at Hammersmith, 
has been an amateur, or fancier, of song-birds, and from time 
to time, has supplied the " Gardeners' Chronicle " with many 
interesting anecdotes of their personal history. At the com- 
mencement, he built a most commodious aviary, and spared 
neither pains nor expense in bringing together everything 
which nature or art could supply, to render it a perfect orni- 
^thologicai palace. His collection of birds was admitted by 
all competent judges to be one of the best existing. He 
possessed a great variety of foreign birds, besides the choicest 
specimens of nearly every songster of our woods and forests. 
It used to be his pride and boast that he had more birds 
than there were days in the y ear, — his number amounting 
to 366 ; and for years, all was one unchequered scene of 
harmony, elegance, and happiness. But alas ! one autumn 
saw a perfect annihilation of this scene of beauty. The 
heavy rains had so swollen the river Thames, that the rats 
on its banks were forced to retreat in all directions, and, 
unhappily an army of them most unceremoniously billeted 
themselves upon this gentleman. Scarcely had they arrived, 
when they bored sundry holes in the flooring of his aviary, 
which he as punctually stopped by nailing plates of zinc 
over them. Yet he never supposed, for a moment, that the 
rats came after his birds. He had recourse to poisoned food 
and Harrison's pills to get rid of them ; but all to no pur- 
pose, for they carefully avoided touching any of it. Thus 
things went on, till one morning he discovered, to his great 
horror, that they had made another hole, and carried off all 
his birds but eleven. These cruel butchers had clambered 
up the poles, and taken them from their perches while sleep- 
ing. The survivors he put into small cages ; thus making 
good the old adage, of locking-up the stable when the horse 
is gone. 
