he has known them come out of their holes, and carry away six or seven fine perch, which had been caught and left by the pool side, with the greatest ease:—
“Some time ago my son had just returned from a day’s angling at Hanwell. The fish lay sparkling on a dish for my approbation. He had caught ten, but he informs me that the first three he caught were by far the finest; and in order to have them safe, he threw them on to the grass some few yards behind where he stood; then, after standing for some time quietly watching his float, he casually turned his head, and there were two large rats running away with two of his fish. He directly dropped his rod and pursued them, but they reached the water before him, and dashed in, taking the fish with them, and instantly disappeared. He supposes that one rat first found them, and taking away a fish to his hole, brought his companion to help him with the other two, and so the three finest fish were lost.”
A gentleman was walking alongside a millstream near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and noticed a common house-rat making its way close by the edge of the water, among the coarse stones that form the embankment. Curious to know what it could be doing there, he watched its progress downwards, until it reached the outlet of a drain. It had scarcely turned into the drain when it made a sudden plunge into the water, and almost as quickly reappeared in the stream with a middle-sized eel in its mouth. It made for the edge, where it regained its footing, and this, from the steepness of the bank, was a matter of great difficulty, which was much increased by the struggles of the eel to get free. Eels at any time, as every angler knows, are troublesome gentry, and very hard to manage; consequently would require all the ingenuity of a rat to cast a knot on one’s tail. But when the rat attempted to get forward, and turn a corner where there was a broader ledge, the desperate efforts of the eel rendered his footing so precarious that, rather than have a second plunge for it, he was reluctantly obliged to drop it into the water. His first action afterwards was to give himself a good shaking, both to revive his spirits and to rid his coat from the effects of his morning dip; and then, as before, he resumed his fishing recreation till he got out of sight,—the stream preventing the observer from following him further.
As some labourers were cutting through an embankment in a field adjoining the river Lune, they met with between fifteen and twenty pounds’ weight of eels, some quite fresh, and others in the last stage of putrefaction. They varied from a quarter to half a pound each, and consisted of the common silver-bellied or river eel, and Liliputian specimens of the conger or sea eel. The latter of course had come up with the tide. As teeth-marks were visible on the heads of most of them, it was conjectured they had been destroyed in that way and stored for winter provisions by some animal whose retreat was not far distant. This proved to be the case, for, on digging a little farther, out bounced a matronly rat with seven half-grown young ones at her heels. The workmen gave chase, and ultimately succeeded in killing both mother and young ones. The embankment is about a hundred yards from the water’s edge; so that it must have cost considerable time and labour on the part of old Ratty to catch and drag the eels thither.
Rats swarm about the small towns in Scotland where the herrings are cured, living amongst the stones of the harbours and rocks on the shores, and issuing out in great numbers, towards nightfall, to feed on the stinking remains of the fish. At the end of the fishing season they may be seen migrating from these places in compact bodies, and in immense numbers. They then spread themselves, like an invading host, among the farms, farm-houses, and stack-yards in the neighbourhood. They again repair to the coast for the benefit of a fish diet and sea air; their wonderful instinct telling them that the fishing season has again commenced.
In the fish-markets of London, and also in the lower order of streets, where fishwomen are in the habit of standing, rats have from time to time been seen issuing forth, after midnight, to eat up the heads and entrails of fish, which the day’s sale had left. Thus before scavengers were introduced, they were of infinite benefit, though their services are now no longer required for that purpose. But about slaughter-houses, knackers’ yards, victualling depôts, drains, &c., their capacious stomachs are still of inestimable value to the population, by consuming all kinds of animal and vegetable refuse, that would otherwise be left in the drains to putrefy, to the great danger of the public health. As to animal substances, rats will gloat over and devour anything, from a delicate chop of house-fed lamb, or babies’ fingers, down to a venison pasty, an old tortoise, or putrid carrion. But with respect to poultry and game of every description, nothing dead or alive, either on water or land, is safe from their rapacity. They will eat anything, from the delicate wing of a roast duckling, young partridge or pheasant, down to the scaly old leg of a centenarian swan. They will likewise consume all kinds of oils and fatty substances, from the purest olive oil to the refuse of whale’s blubber. Nor will they object to soaps, either yellow or mottled, tallow fresh or stale; nor are they very particular, in times of need, as to boots and shoes, or horses’ harness. They will also consume all kinds of tuberous or bulbous roots, from a prize tulip to a mangel-wurzel. I have read also of their getting into churchyards, and eating our departed friends in their graves, as well as infesting the dead-houses on the Continent, where the bodies of strangers or casual dead are taken, for the purpose of being owned and claimed by their friends; but frequently, in a single night, their faces and portions of their bodies have been so completely eaten away by rats, that all traces of identity were entirely obliterated. Thus it appears we are never secure, either dead or alive, from the liability of becoming food for rats.
Notwithstanding the weak and contemptible appearance of the rat, it possesses peculiarities and properties which render it a far more formidable enemy to mankind than even those animals gifted with the greatest strength and most destructive dispositions, such as lions, tigers, wolves, wild cats, hogs, and hyænas. The midnight burglaries undetected by the police sink into in significance compared with the ravages of the rats of the London sewers, which steal and destroy more in one week than the value of all the robberies of plate that blaze away in the newspapers from one year’s end to another. They are one of the greatest animal nuisances that have infested our homes and fields since the days when an English king levied tribute of wolves’ heads upon our brethren of Wales.
Independently of their destroying furniture, &c., they have been known to gnaw the extremities of children while asleep. A child was nearly eaten to death by rats in the City. The parents, it appears, lived on a first floor, and the mother had gone out to market, leaving the child alone, sleeping in the cradle. During her absence the persons on the ground-floor heard the child crying in a most piteous manner, and after some time they went up to see what was the matter. Upon entering the room, they beheld several rats gnawing one of the child’s hands, two fingers of which they had actually eaten off. The child was immediately taken to the hospital, and had the lacerated parts cut away, and fortunately no fatal consequences ensued. The rats are supposed to have effected their entrance from the drain underneath the house communicating with the main sewer, and, but for the timely interference of the occupiers of the ground-floor, there is little doubt the child would have been entirely eaten up. The circumstance at the time occasioned considerable sensation in the neighbourhood; but, like all other rat-exploits, was soon looked upon as a mere matter of course, and then sank into comparative oblivion.
One evening, as a gentleman well known to the theatrical world was seated with his family at the supper-table, they were all at once dreadfully alarmed by the heart-rending and pitiable screeches of his infant daughter, who had been sleeping in the adjoining room. They instantly ran to ascertain the cause of her agonies. At first they saw no visible cause, but on slightly turning down the bedclothes they discovered, to their horror, that blood was streaming from one of her feet, and upon closer examination they found the joint of her great toe most dreadfully lacerated. Of course, medical assistance was immediately sent for, and in the interim their imaginations were strained to their utmost as to how or what could have been the cause of it. While thus pondering, they suddenly saw something moving backwards and forwards beneath the clothes, at the bottom of the bed. The first impulse of the father was, of course, to grasp at it outside the clothes, and squeeze it with all his might; this he did, and held it till it was dead. Then, upon throwing off the bedclothes, they beheld, to their loathing and disgust, an enormous sewer rat. When the medical gentleman arrived, and saw the
