_HOW THE RAT LOOKS AND LIVES._
[Illustration]
1. The rat looks like a very large mouse. It has the same kind of
chisel-teeth, sharp claws, and long tail, and it lives very much in
the same way as a mouse.
2. It eats all kinds of food, and will live where most other animals
would starve. Its teeth are strong, and it can gnaw its way into the
hardest nuts, or through thick boards.
3. The claws of the rat are sharp, so that it can run up the side of a
house, or up any steep place where its claws will take hold. When at
the bottom of a barrel, or kettle of iron, brass, or tin, it can not
climb out.
4. The hind feet of the rat are made in a curious way: they can turn
round so that the claws point back. This enables a rat, when it runs
down the side of a house, to turn its feet around and hold on, while
it goes down head foremost.
5. The tail of the rat is made up of rings, and is covered with scales
and very short hair. The rat uses it like a hand to hold himself up
and to take hold of things.
6. Rats live in houses and barns, or wherever they can get enough to
eat. In cities, they get into drains, and eat up many things which
would be harmful if left to decay.
7. They are great pests in the house, running about in the walls,
gnawing through the ceilings, and destroying food and clothing.
8. When rats get into a barn, they are very destructive. They eat up
grain, and kill young chickens; and they often come in droves, when
the pigs are fed, to share the food.
9. Rats increase very fast. Each mother rat produces fifty young ones
in a year; and if we did not take great pains to destroy them, they
would drive us out of our homes.