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.