Tombstone epitaph., 1890-03-15
RATS IN TREE TOPS.
Another Instance Of Han Trying to I'm
 prove on Nature.

Another Instance Of Han Trying to I'm. prove on Nature.
 A curious and interesting instance of animals chan~ing their habits owing to the altered circumstances of their sur roundings, or, as Darwin called it, their ''adaptabili5y to environment" camo under the writer's notice short time ago on the Island of Jamaica. While travelling through the northern part of that island he passed grove after grove of cocoa-nut palms. All the trees five years old and upwards, th1t is, the fruit bearing trees, were tin-girdled around their trunks. For five feet above the ground each tree was incased in plate of tin nailed firmly
 --IIla-s-s-Is many years the sugar-planters in Jamai- ca were cursed with the ravages of rats. These rodents would invade the fields just when the cane was getting ripe for cutting. Each rat would select some choice cane and begin to nibble at it's base, gradually gnaWing deeper and deeper into it until 1t toppled over The crash of the falling cane frigbtened the rat, who, scampering off, soon began at another one. These pests did enormous damage and no small item in the sugar planters yearly bill was the one for the rat-catcher.
 Ten years ago Bancroft Espent, a well-knOwn planter on tho island, i'm ported from India six couples of mon goose or ichneumon, the deadly enemy of snakes and rats. The mongoose in creased and mulUip piled in an incredible manner and themselves became pest, which every means failed to destroy. The rats at first fell an easy prey to their destroyers and were soon driven out of the fields and the stone-wall fonces that had formed their homes. They swarpped into the houses and towns, but WtSe still followod by the ichneumons. The fUll-grown rat by it's feetness did escape for time, but the mOngoose easily scented out the nest of little ones and destroyed them, or, ferret-lile, traced the rat to it's last lair and killed it there. The rat, driven from every refuge, took then to the palm trees, and among the cluster of fronds that crown each tree made it's home and reared its family in safety.
 At first it was hardly credited that the rat had turned into an arboreal rodent, but it soon became @ painful fact, for as the fruit-bearing spike pushed it's way out, the rats would nibble it of and rem der the tree barren. The writer has himself seen rats, disturbed by negro who had climbed tree for the cocoa nuts, jump to the ground fully fifty feet. But nature has not endowed them with the nine lives of a cat also, for the fall certainly knocked all the wind out of them, and they fell an easy prey to the nearest dog or man. Owing to this new development in the habits of the Ja- maica rat, the planter has been obliged to tin-Iine his cocoa-nut trees.
 In the meantime the mongoose has turned his attention to the farm-yard and whereas few years ago fowls were the cheapest and comnOnest food, now they can be enjoyed only by the well-to- do. It is another instance of man try ing to improve on nature. Not long ago there was good guinea bird, quail and partridge shooting to be had on the island, but as these birds build on the ground, not one is to be found now, for if there is any thing mongoose likes it is to suck an egg, and he does it so ar tistically, making the smallest of holes, that the mother-bird still sits on, in vain hopes of matching her brood.-N.