A RAT YEAR.
Stories of the abnormal number of rats come from all parts of the country ; and there are particular places much in need of a pied piper. This sudden multiplication, though it is always associated with a wet summer, is not easy to explain. A great deal of scientific destruction is undertaken. I know one farm where the use of poison gas, pumped into any visible hole, is a regular part of the routine. The gas is singularly deadly, but the swarm of rats continues large in spite of it, and they do vastly greater damage than all the rest of the animals put together. They destroy even floors and walls, and in this way cost the railway companies, for example, serious sums of money. Stations for some reason are peculiarly populous ; and you cannot either gas station rats effectively or copy the sailors and keep a multitude of cats. The subject is worth the attention of the man of science.
W. BEACH THOMAS. W. BEACH THOMAS.
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