166 
THE RAT. 
stances as they appear recorded in our various journals, for 
the purpose of establishing the fact, that rats are not only 
a scourge to farmers, merchants, and others, but are starvers 
of the poor, and a hinderance to individual and national 
prosperity, in whatever part of the world they accumulate ; 
and that no cultivated portion of the Universe is free from 
their devastating and ruinous effects. "Were their numbers 
and depredations fully enumerated and recorded, I believe 
the narrative would reach to the North Pole and back 
again, and then leave an appendage which, when unfolded, 
would more than lap the circumference of the globe. For 
their numbers and devastations, in every part of the known 
world, are so multitudinous and overwhelming, that they are 
perfectly beyond all enumeration ; and a person might just 
as reasonably set to work to count the stars in the firma- 
ment, as to give anything like a correct account of the num- 
bers and doings of rats. 
I shall now proceed to arrange my subject under three prin- 
cipal divisions : — First, the Fecundity of rats ; second, their 
Devastating Powers ; and, lastly, the best means for their 
Local Extirpation. 
CHAPTER II. 
FECUNDITY OF RATS. 
I SHALL here commence by giving the results of my cal- 
culations as to the prolific nature of rats, since their powers 
for increasing and multiplying are not, perhaps, to be sur- 
passed by any other order of quadrupeds. In this respect 
I have been assisted by the best possible information, both 
from naturalists of the highest standing, and also from living- 
individuals of long and practical experience. 
Baron Cuvier and most other naturalists state that rats 
have from twelve to eighteen young ones at a litter. A cele- 
brated rat-catcher declares that he once took from a dead rat 
no less than twenty-one young ones, and speaks of two other 
cases wherein the same number was produced, and another 
