The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-25
RATS IN ENGLAND.
SERIOUS MENACE TO CROPS,
 LIFE STOCK AND GAME.

&1E @AAtA
 marks Determination to Wipe Out
 the Pest
 The Danes, who spare no trouble to pretect their important butter industry, have lately undertaken a national cam paign against rats. This has been done par ly a. a pIeeaution against plague breaking out in their seaports and part 5 because butter tubs are particularly attractive to rats, for there is nothing more disgusting than he thought that these filthy animals may ha,e z leen in contact with so absorbent anu easily tainted an article of food. say the London Spectator.
 In England, on the other hand, no concerted effor is made to c.seck the rat plague. The animals are increas- ing everywhere. 10 the detriment of agriculturalists, poultry owners, game farmers, and not less so of our native wild birds of many kinds The per centage of linnets', bulfinches', warb- lers,; and other nests of our smalled birds the eggs of which are eaten by rats is very large, as any one may prove who seeks for them and watches the fate of the nests. They also act as a serious check on the increase of wild i fowl, which began after the protection acts were passed. They prefer the eggs of wild ducks and marsh birds to any other food, and a case was lately men, toned in which the owner of a duck farm found thirteen ducks eggs in the hole of one doe rat.
 In the month of October there is a 1 great movement of these animals from | the east-coast island. On a shooting estate lately visited by the writer, where incessant trapping keeps them at bay, an October invasion is always | expected, and as the whole property is kept carefully under observation, the direction from which they cross the l frontier is well known. It is very proto- able that this march of the mischie- vous is partly due to the closure of the main herring fishery on the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk about that time, l and that the increase of the rats is not unconnected with the exceptionally large catches of herrings made during l LLlC past lWO SSdSOllSs l IlC SlIOclo OL | herrings have passed all previous rec ord, and some six hundred Scotch wo- men have been engaged in cleaning 1 the fish Sometimes the refuse is very properly saved for fish manure. But | the garbage of countless numbers of herrings is thrown away, and this at- tracts and keeps fat the rats in the late summer and early autumn. When the source of supply grows less, the creatures move inland.
 In Norfolk this was aggravated a fewyears ago by a severe flood in parts of the fen. This drove out tens of thousands of rats from the low land to l the higher ground. The plague was such l that on one estate the keepers were afraid to go to one wood at night, so numerous and bold were the creatures. It was not until after weeks of whole sale poisoning and trapping that their numbers were reduced. But they had come to stay and several circumstances aided them in their resolution. Not the least important item in the rats favor was the almost universal spread of pheasant preserving and pheasant rear ing. If a line be drawn perpendicular to the east coast of Norfolk inland to Cambridgeshire, near Newmarket, and thence, in a slightly different direction, through Hertfordshire, it cuts one con- tinuous succession of great pheasant preserves.
 1 On these the pheasants are supplied often overlavishIy. with artificial food the year round. The quantity of meal scattered for the young pheasants and of Indian corn thrown out to keep the
 birds at home' in the autumn and winter is such that it makes a con- siderable item in the profits of local corn dealers. It is given with the greatest regularity every day, and the rats will always have their share, con- ing out in the most impudent way and feeding among the pheasants.
 If the keepers are slack in their duty l every pheasant preserve becomes 8 rat preserve On the partridge manors it is so impossible to allow the rat to in- crease and to exercise it's egg-stealing power in spring that as rule the yer
 min are kept at bay. Another factor in the dispersion and harboring of these pests is the modern plan of building the corn stacks. in the field from which the wheat has been reaped instead of bringing it all home to the rick yard It saves the loss of time and the ex- { pense of carting the loads to the home- 1 stead. There is also less risk of the whole harvest being destroyed by fire. l But every one of these isolated stacks scattered over the face of the country makes a comfortable winter home for rats, and a point of dispersion from which when the grain is threshed out, l they move out into the hadgerows and pond banks. They are particularly fond of bean stacks, partly because the thick light bean straw is easy to bur- row in, partly because they like to eat beans. On "heavy land" farms in wet weather the rat runs are now traceable like hare runs on the downs, broad paths crossing the open fields and beat en flat by the animals feet.
 Almost the only places in which they do no harm, and are even useful, are the tunnels of the underground rail- ways of London, and near the plat forms of the great London termini. ! Passengers throw quantities of surplus food out of the windows, and the rail- way rats come out by night and devour it. The identification of the District and "Circle" lines has greatly diminish 1 ed the rats in those parts of under