WORLD'S GREATEST FOOD PIRATE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 272, 13 August 1919, Page 5

WORLD'S GREATEST FOOD PIRATE

THE PREDATORY RODENT. Our knowledge of the rat's lhabits has been much enlarged by forced association with him in the trenches. It is safo to say that millions of persons have seen and watched rats during four years past who never saw one before except when it was dead in a trap. And, what is more, among these observers are some whose observations are of value to science. It is the rat's fondness for man's food that brings him to houses, and it was that which caused him to overrun the trenches.. Lanz, a writer quoted in "Good Health," ascribes this fondness to the fact that the rat does not. h\y up stores of food like his cousin the squirrel. Even when ho. carries off more than he can eat at a meal, ho is apt to befoul it so that ihe can not use what is left. Says "Good Health":—

"An adult brown rat eats two ounces of food a day, and will eat forty-five lo fifty pounds of grain in a year. It also devours, poultry and eggs, game, vegetables, fruit, coffee, dates, oranges, cocoa; it gnaws vines, clothing, textiles, leather-covered hooks; it is fond of gluo and attacks harness, especially _ when worn, and curtains, whether of silk, cotton, or tapestry. The rat attacks anything its teeth can take hold on; it is, in fact, a terrible spoiler, gnawing incessantly and indiscriminately aay object its teeth can make an impression on. "The marked identity of n\enn in tho food of men and of rats is curious enough between two species whose dental type is so different. But tho rat differs from man in the al«olute necessity .it is subjec| to of eating often and enormously, it is this need of abundant nourishment which makes cannibals of rats. Some soldiers experimented ■ with rats, putting eight in a cage together. Eight days later only one was there and it was seriously wounded.

"However, a precise statement of the alimentary regimen of rats is moro difficult than it would appear, since individuals vary in their tastes. Experiments made by myself, in collaboration with Dr. Laurens, prove that, contrary to accepted opinion, the brown rat has a very rc\stricted diet, being comparatively fastidious. Thus it eats the crumb but not the crust of bread, unless urged by oxtremo hunger. Some rats have, actually died with crusts still in their, larder. Both black'and brown rats like cooked rice, potatoes, carrots, and fish, as well as cheese and certain -uncooked fruits and Balads. They will devour the flesh of a melon but leave tho rind. They like lard, pastry, sugar, and chocolate, as well as meat (principally cooked), though the latter seems scarcoly consonant with their dentition. They sometimes ceat raw meat, but this is by necessity and not by choice. They neglect turnips, radishes, and dandelion; they will eat oats, but will perish if confined to this food. When tainted meat is given them thoy eat only tho sound portions. They will not touch barley. A Tat fed'only on fruit will die of starvation in a few days. If fed only on those stuffs which it eagerly gnaws, cloth, leather, wood, etc., it dies as soon as if entirely deprived of food. Experiment proved, rather to our astonishment, that the rat is not graminivorous; it eats wheat only ip default of other food. The trenches abound with tales of the rat's greed for soap and candles, but when these Tvere placed in their cages, they were enteh only in default of of other food. Tho rat. is known to attack corpses, but this is by necessity rather than choice. . "One causo of the rat's addiction to man's diet is that it neither hibernates nor lays up stores for winter, as do other rodonts, the marmot and the squirrel, respectively.

"Eats are not only voracious but they defile food. If they devour nearly threu times their weight of food, then they destroy two or three times as much more. Whenever they find a. fragment of food not too heavy for them to carry, they drag it near their holes, eat a part, and soil the resb This behaviour is very remarkable in cagetl animalß. When they are given, by the way of experiment, limited and insufficient rations, they 6poil half of'it, thus dying of starvation -with food which they have .destroyed beside them/ In captivity, thoy always foul even their drinking water."