CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 7. RODENTIA. 
"Rats, when hard pressed for food, are not particular as to what they eat. In extremities they 
will attack and devour human flesh. An instance, corroborating this fact, came to my personal 
knowledge and inspection about Christmas-time, 1851. The body of an unfortunate pauper, whose 
frame was emaciated to the last degree by famine and want, was brought to one of the theaters 
of anatomy in London, for dissection. When the corpse was placed on the table, it was found 
that the whole of the lips and parts of the ears were wanting; in the place of the eyeballs were 
empty sockets; the parts also covering the palmar surface of the fingers were gone, only the bones 
and nails being left. Besides this, marks of teeth were visible on various other parts of the body. 
How came all this mutilation? What had caused this fearful disfigurement? Upon inquiry, it 
was ascertained that this poor victim of starvation had been taken in from the streets, friendless 
and unknown, into a workhouse — there he had died, and had been carried to the dead-house pre- 
vious to removal to a dissecting-room. The rats — for, living in a workhouse, we may suppose 
that they, too, did not get too much to eat — ^had found out the corpse, and in the space of one 
night had committed all this havoc, devouring the most tender parts of the body ; at least, I sup- 
pose they had found the parts that were missing were the most dainty morsels, for the marks of 
their sharp teeth showed that they had had a taste of nearly every other part of the body. After 
this event, means were taken to prevent the ingress of the rats into the dead-house, and a similar 
HAWK AND EAT. 
" Rats will sometimes attack living men, though in this case fear, and not hunger, is their mo- 
tive. Mr. Mayhew writes as follows : — 'About that time a troop of rats flew at the feet of another 
of my informants — one of the men who work in the London sewers — and would have no doubt 
maimed him seriously, "but my boots," said he, "stopped the devils." "The sewers generally 
swarm with rats," said another man: "I runs away from 'em, I don't like 'em. They in general 
gets away from us; but in case w^e comes to a stunt end where there is a wall and no place for 
'em to get away, and we goes to touch 'em, they fly at us. They're some of 'em as big as good 
sized kittens. One of our men caught hold of one the other day by the tail, and he found it try- 
ing to release itself, and the tail slipping through his fingers ; so he put up his left hand to stop 
it, and the rat caught hold of his finger, and the man's got an arm now as big as his thigh.'"" 
