THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 203 
THE FOOD OF RATS. 
By Tuos. Steen, F.L.8. 
In an article entitled “The Invasion of Trenches py Rats,” 
Nature, 102, 53, quotes from the Revue Generale des Scvences a 
paper by Prof. P. Chavigny on above subject. It is stated that 
the rat which invades trenches is nearly always the ordinary 
brown or Norway rat (Mus decamanus), but in the ease of dry 
trenehes the black rat (JZ. ratiws) may be present. Prof. Cha-  ‘ 
vigny says that rats live on exactly the same food as man, and 
cooked in the same way. Of raw food they can make scarcely 
any use. Wor instance, they simply starve on raw barley. They 
will gnaw and destroy almost anything that their teeth exn pene- 
trate, but what they actually live upon is simply the ordinary 
human food which they are able to reach, and particularly the 
remnants from meals. The disappointing results obtained by 
the various methods of destroying rats are due to neglect of the 
fact that multiplication of rats is simply the result of scattering 
human food within their reach. a 
Some of the above statements appear to me to be extraordin- 
ary, particularly the alleged necessity for rats to get cooked 
human food. The hordes of rats which swarm along cur fore- 
chores and in granaries, abattoirs and such-like haunts, could not 
possibly get sufficient cooked human food to keep them alive, yet 
they are plump and well-fed. Anyone who has kept ducks or 
hens in a rat-infested place, knows that rats will attack the 
voung birds, even dragging them from under the brooding 
mother, and devouring them raw, while attacks on living and 
dead human beings are by no means rare. Along the water- 
front rats freely catch and eat crabs, and they will devour raw 
fish with avidity. Certainly they will eat cooked human food 
when they can get it, but they are omniverous feeders, and I 
have personally known them to devour, not merely gnaw, raw 
pumpkin, melon, apple, and other fruit. Of pumnkun seeds 
they are very fond, and an apple core makes a good bait for a 
trap They do not seem to cave much for raw mutton cr beef, 
but they will devour that too. My wife once noticed them at- 
tack raw potatoes and pumpkin seeds, ahd neglect a piece of 
yaw beef which was alongside. They are partial to youu birds, 
and will climb trees and harry nests. Under a creeper in my 
garden at Petersham, near Sydney, the common snail (Helix 
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