Vermin of the Farm. 207 
According to Erxleben, it reached England in 1730, and France 
in 1750. 
Waterton affirms that the first seen in England arrived in 
a ship from Germany some few years after the fateful period of 
1688. “ There is a tradition,” he says,^ “ that it actually came 
over in the same ship which conveyed the new dynasty to these 
shores. My father, who was of the first order of field naturalists, 
was always positive on this point; and he maintained firmly 
that it did accompany the House of Hanover in its emigration 
from Germany to England.” Be this as it may, the brown rat 
is now so firmly established as to well-nigh defy all attempts at 
its extermination. 
The chief causes favourable to its continued existence are 
two : its extremely prolific nature, and the variety of its food. 
Eight or ten young ones at a birth, several times a year, show 
a most alarming increase, greater even than in the case of the 
rabbit, which, though breeding as often in the year, produces 
fewer young at a birth. Rats will breed when only half grown, 
but in this case will produce only three or four at a birth. As 
regards the variety of the food on which they subsist, if one kind 
should fail, another is at once made available, so that unlike 
some other animals it is practically impossible for rats to 
starve. Grain of all kinds, meal, dog-biscuit, carrots, turnips, 
traffics, the bark of fruit-trees, fruit, eggs, chickens, ducklings, 
pigeons, young rabbits, and even moles, ^ all form items in the 
long bill of fare of this omnivorous animal. 
A propos of its taste for dog-biscuit, a curious incident is 
narrated by Mr. T. W. Kirk, of the Colonial Museum, Welling- 
ton, New Zealand : — 
“ I was standing ” (lie says) “ in the doorway of a large shed, the further 
end of which had been partitioned off with bars to form a fowl-house, when 
I was attracted by a gnawing and scraping noise. Turning round I saw a 
rat run from a large dog-biscuit which was lying on the floor and pass 
through the bars. Being curious to watch if he would return, I kept quiet, 
and presently saw a well-grown specimen of the common brown rat {Mus 
decumanus) come cautiously forward, and after nibbling for a short time at 
the biscuit, drag it toward the bars, which are only two inches apart, and 
would not allow the biscuit to pass. After several unsuccessful attempts he 
left it, and in about flve minutes returned with another rat, rather smaller 
than himself. He then came through the bars, and, pushing his nose under 
the biscuit, gradually tipped it on edge, rat number two pulling vigorously 
from the other side ; by this means they Anally succeeded in getting a four- 
inch biscuit through a two-inch aperture. Not feeling pleased that my dog’s 
' assays 071 Natural History, 1st series, p. 211. 
* An instance is known to us in which a rat was shot in the act of cair^’ing 
off a half-grown mole in its mouth. 
