“The mouse is much more familiar to you. It has been known from the earliest times all over the world. Need I describe this little rodent, so well known for its liveliness, its wily nature, and its extreme timidity, which makes it scuttle away to its hole at the slightest alarm?”
“We all know the mouse very well,” Jules assured him.
“The Norway or brown rat, also known as the sewer-rat, is the largest and most troublesome of all European rats. It attains a length of nearly a foot, without counting the tail, which is scaly like the mouse’s and a little shorter than the body. The largest and strongest Norway rat can cope with a [[101]]cat. Its presence in Europe dates only from the middle of the eighteenth century, and it seems to have been brought from India in the hold of ships, which it commonly infests. It has now spread all over the world. Its coat is reddish brown above and ashy gray underneath.
“Norway rats frequent storehouses, cellars, sewers, slaughter-houses, and dumping grounds. Everything is food to these filthy and audacious creatures, and they even dare to attack a sleeping man. In large towns they multiply so fast as to cause serious alarm. The vicinity of the slaughter-house of Montfaucon in Paris is so undermined with their innumerable burrows that the buildings there are in danger of collapsing. To preserve them from this disaster it is necessary to protect their foundation against the attacks of the rodents by means of a deep enclosing belt of broken glass bottles.”
“What attracts them in such numbers to these places?” asked Jules.
“The abundance of food, the dead bodies of slaughtered horses. In one night, if left in the slaughter-house yards, dead horses are devoured to the skeleton. During severe frosts if the skin is not removed in time the Norway rats get inside the body, stay there, and eat all the flesh, so that when a thaw comes and the workmen begin to skin the animal, they find inside the skin nothing but a host of rats swarming among the bare bones.”
“But don’t the people there have any cats to protect them?” asked Emile. [[102]]
“Cats! The Norway rats would eat them alive, my boy, in no time. They have something better, however—dogs, both terriers and bulldogs, that run the rats down in the sewers with astonishing cleverness and break their back with one bite. The bulldog—that’s the kind of cat you need for such mice. This hunt in the sewer, moreover, must be frequently repeated, for Norway rats multiply with frightful rapidity, and if we were not careful the town would sooner or later be endangered; the horrible creature, strong in its numbers, would devour all Paris. In December of the year 1849 two hundred and fifty thousand rats were destroyed in a few days as the result of a single hunt.
“In the country the Norway rat frequents the banks of foul streams; it enters kitchens through sink-holes; it gets into hen-houses and rabbit-warrens by undermining the walls. It haunts cellars and stables, but rarely makes its way into high granaries, doubtless because of its liking for filthy drainage and any kind of offal, which can be found only on ground floors and in basements. It pounces upon eggs and young fowls, and even has the boldness to suck the blood of full-grown poultry and rabbits. When it cannot get animal food, which is its first choice, it will eat grain and vegetables of all kinds. No sort of food is rejected by this filthy glutton. To get rid of it you can hardly count on the cat, for usually pussy is afraid to attack it. Nor are night-birds strong enough to battle with it, except the eagle-owl, which does not abound in any numbers. [[103]]The trap and poison are our only remaining means of overcoming this redoubtable foe.
“The field-mouse is a little larger than the ordinary mouse. Its coat, which closely resembles that of the Norway rat, is reddish brown above and white underneath. Its eyes are large and prominent, its ears nearly black, and its feet white. Its tail, which is very long, like that of the common mouse, is thinly covered with hair and is black toward the end. The field-mouse frequents woods, hedges, fields, and gardens. It cuts down the stalks of grain to get at the ears, of which it nibbles a few kernels and wastefully scatters the rest. In its quest for food it unearths newly planted seeds, takes a taste of the young shoots that have just come up, gnaws the bark of shrubs, and feasts on growing vegetables. Its ravages are all the more serious because it lays up provisions against a time of need. In storage chambers more than a foot underground, beneath some tree trunk or rock, it collects grain, hazelnuts, acorns, almonds, and chestnuts, often going a considerable distance to get them. One such store-room is not enough; it must have several, for it has a way of foolishly forgetting where its treasure is buried. In winter the field-mouse ventures to approach our houses and makes its way into our cellars where fruit and vegetables are kept, or it establishes itself in great numbers in our granaries.