OF POULTRY. 
299 
they will kill and devour both mice and young rats. Nor 
are they very backward in having a taste of a full-grown rat, 
if it lies dead in their way. I have seen a perfect scramble 
for a mouse or young rat that was dodging in and out among 
their legs ; and after one had pecked it, and a second, a third 
seized it in her mouth, or bill, and ran away, when there 
was a regular race for its carcass, which among them was 
torn to pieces and devoured. As I have told you before, 
no kind of animal food comes amiss to them ; for they will 
not only eat the flesh of any animal ranging between a horse 
and a mouse, but will pick the bones of their own species, or 
any other bird, with the utmost relish and satisfaction. 
As to pigeons, however, they live on nothing but grain, 
and will fly for miles in quest of it. Indeed no grounds are 
safe from their depredations. I read of one case wherein 
curiosity led a gentleman to open the crop of one he had 
just shot, and he counted over four thousand turnip seeds it 
had swallowed. In 1853, a wood-pigeon was shot in a field 
of wheat at Newhouse, in the parish of Dairy, N.B., when, 
on examination, the crop was found to contain 858 grains of 
wheat. Surely farmers should be on the alert to put an end 
to these destructive creatures. 
And now I have only to express a hope, in conclusion, 
that I have acquitted myself to your satisfaction, in shov/ing 
the devastating character of the rat, and its cost to the 
nation. It, therefore, only remains for you to do your duty, 
and carry my plans into execution ; and by so doing, you 
will not only enrich yourselves and your families, but do 
much towards increasing and sustaining native indepen- 
dence, and the honour and dignity of our native land. 
THE EXD. 
cox AND WYMAN, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN-STREET, LONDON. 
