paper that might be lying about, and pull them under the bookcase, where he tore them up into small pieces to make a nest of. His nest was generally cleared away in the morning by the housemaid, so every evening he had to start afresh.

"Whiskers" liked being petted, and would come and lie on my lap, or sit on my shoulder, while he was stroked and scratched, but as soon as I stopped he would scamper off again. He usually came when called by name, but the last thing at night he was sometimes very tiresome, for he knew quite well that he was wanted, and he would do anything rather than be caught and shut up. Once one got a firm grip of his slippery form he would give in, nor did he on any occasion try to get away when I had him in my hands. Very different was his behaviour whenever I went up to his room to bring him out, then his one idea was to get, as quickly as he possibly could, up on to my shoulder.

Twice I thought I had lost him, on each occasion he got up a chimney, but each time, when called, he came down again. One night he really did get out of his room, and what was worse got outside the house. For a week there was no trace of him, but one day a dog was seen scratching excitedly at an old disused grate in an outbuilding, so knowing "Whiskers' " liking for sooty places I drove the terrier away, and then went down on my hands and knees before the dirty, old fireplace, and called "Whiskers," "Whiskers." In the silence that followed I thought I heard something move, so I pushed my arm up the dirty, sooty chimney, instantly small feet clasped my fingers, and my rat came down, clinging to my arm, He was black with soot, very thin, his fur, which had been sleek, was harsh and staring, while he was covered with bites from head to foot. It was evident he had fought some other rat, and I can only hope he killed the strange one, for it practically killed him. At first it seemed as if he would get over the affair all right, for his wounds gradually healed, and he was as tame and confident as ever. But he never recovered his old sleek look, he never got fat again, and gradually got weaker and weaker; at last he cared for nothing but to lie and be petted, while the only things he would eat were eggs and cooked chestnuts. Chestnuts he had always been extraordinarily fond of, he liked them hot and would not touch them uncooked, but no luxuries could save him, and the end came some months from the time of his escape, and when he was

just two years old. Poor old "Whiskers," I believe any one of the family would rather have lost a pet dog, for a more affectionate and intelligent creature no one could wish to meet with.

Having found the much-abused brown rat so charming when one got to know it intimately, I next tried to get a pair of the old English rats, but so scarce are they that I had considerable trouble before I could do so. By the bye, it has been stated that these rats are now extinct in Great Britain, but this is not correct, they occur in some seaports, and in certain seaside places, but to procure a couple of live ones is a very difficult matter, and it was some time before I did so. At last I got into communication with a rat-catcher in Plymouth, who caught several on one of the old wooden ships and sent me two of them. Pretty little things they were, slaty-black and elegantly shaped, more like large mice than the ordinary rat, but mice and rats are very closely connected, and the ordinary house mouse is but a tiny rat, whereas the water rat, and those short, stumpy mice found in meadows, are a quite distinct family and correctly speaking should be called voles. Of course, the brown rat often lives by the water side, where it soon drives out the water-voles, and takes up its abode in their holes, from which, if alarmed, it can dive into the water and swim away, for it can swim almost as well as the creatures it has turned out.

To go back to my two black rats, I soon found that they were just as particular about washing themselves as ever "Whiskers had been, they would sit on their hind legs, pass their paws rapidly over head and ears, licking each paw between each wipe, then with the same hurried manner run over their body fur, while lastly their "waistcoat part" received careful attention, but I never saw them clean their tails, nor did I ever see "Whiskers" touch his after he was a very tiny little creature. Once, when he could just sit up, I saw him pick up his tail in his paws and lick it, but though I saw him clean himself many hundreds of times afterwards he never went further than the base of the tail, and I very much doubt if any of the tribe clean this most useful organ. An examination of numbers of rats trapped or otherwise killed during wet periods has always shown them with dirty tails, often caked with mud, though the rest of their fur seems spotlessly clean. When just trotting along a rat carries its tail clear of the ground, but when it jumps the tail hits, or rather is pressed, on the floor,

and assists it to spring, in this way no doubt a good deal of dirt is picked up, but that seems no reason for not cleaning it off again, especially when one considers how particular the rat is about the rest of its person, even the youngest one hating to get a spot of dirt on its fur.

Speaking of young ones reminds me of an incident I saw a little time ago when moving the pair of black rats that I have just mentioned, from their usual quarters to a glass-sided case in which I wished to photograph them. The family consisted of the two old rats and two young ones, the latter being old enough to crawl about, but they had not yet got their eyes open. Mrs. Rat no sooner found that her babies were exposed to the public view, than she ran across to a wooden box which was at the end of the case, looked in, and examined the hay it contained, then ran back, seized the first little black creature by the back of its neck, and bore it off in the same way a cat will carry her kitten. She hid it under the hay in the box, and then came back for number two, and holding her head high in the air did the same for that, though they must have been a heavy burden for her. I put the family back at once into their usual cage, for I thought it was a shame to worry the good little mother.

Since then this same pair of rats have had a second family, seven in number, but what makes the fact of interest is that while five of the young ones were of the typical slaty-black colour, two were of a light brown tint, so that it is obvious that brown specimens of the Old English rat are not, as has been suggested, a local race, but are merely a variety that might occur anywhere, and which would survive or not according to whether their colour was an advantage or disadvantage to them among their surroundings.

It is rare for a rat family, Old English or Norwegian, to number only two, anything from six to ten being the general size of the litters; sometimes they will be even larger, and when one remembers what devoted mothers the old does are, that they generally bring up the lot, and it is said have six or seven families in the year, it becomes a matter for wonder, not that it is difficult to keep rats down, but that the country is not overrun with them.

Their enemies are few. First and foremost comes man, with his poisons, traps, and ferrets; but in the country he is assisted by the white or barn owl, which haunts barns, outbuildings, and other

places beloved by the rats; it comes forth with the dusk, as do the rats and mice from their hiding-places, and though it is hardly big or strong enough to tackle a full-grown male brown rat, it accounts for many half grown and weakly ones, swooping down upon them on its noiseless wings, and bearing one off before it knows danger is about. Young and innocent rats, venturing for the first time from their snug nest of straw, paper, rags, feathers, and other odds and ends, are picked up in the owl's claws before they have time to turn and bolt back into their hole. It is at this age that the farmyard cat can take heavy toll; she will wait and watch where they come to steal the pigs' food, or else at the mouth of the hole, and woe to that young family on which she fixes her attention, for she will leave no survivor. The weasel is another creature that helps to keep the rat population within bounds, but it again seldom tackles a full-grown rat, though it does considerable damage to the rising generation. It is practically the only animal that wages war when the rat takes to a hedgerow, woodland, or streamside life, during the pleasant summer months. Winter, with its wet and uncomfortable conditions, to say nothing of shortness of food, generally drives such rats back to the farmsteads, to thieve again from their old foe. Indeed, full-grown brown rats have but this one enemy really to fear, and if at his hands they undergo constant persecution, one cannot but admit they thoroughly deserve it, for more mischievous creatures the wide world cannot provide, and there are few parts of the globe where it is not a serious pest. But before rats are doomed to total extinction-that is to say if those bodies who at various times have threatened to clear the land of rats could possibly carry out their proposals-it would be better to hear what else scientific men have to say on the subject. To hear more of their suggestion that in the brown rat, with its stay-athome flea, we have a safeguard from a dreadful disease, which still flourishes in countries where black rats carrying the wandering flea are plentiful. But I for one will never believe that rats could be totally exterminated; they may for a time be reduced in number or driven away from some given locality, but to wipe them out completely is a very different matter, and an army of the most expert rat-catchers would be overwhelmed by the task, so I strongly suspect that this much-persecuted tribe will continue to flourish.

FRANCES PITT.

AMERICAN AFFAIRS

WASHINGTON, June 8, 1912. THE Contest that has been carried on with such bitterness between the President and ex-President Roosevelt for the Republican nomination for the Presidency has given great impetus to the movement to amend the Constitution so as to increase the term of the President from four to six years, and make him ineligible for re-election. Bills to carry this change into effect are pending in both Houses of Congress, but final action is not likely to be taken at this session, and perhaps not for a good many sessions, for the American people are conservative and the emergency must be very great before they will consent to alter the framework of their Government. Yet it will no doubt come in time, and when it does come we shall be spared the undignified performance which has been witnessed during the last three months. It is not an edifying spectacle, and it does not tend to teach respect for the chief magistracy, to hear the President denouncing his predecessor as a falsifier, or to read that the former President has branded his successor as weak and foolish and unworthy to be entrusted with the power of his high office. Americans are shocked and humiliated. They feel they have been cheapened in the eyes of the world, and they do not wonder that Europe should hold a very low opinion of American politics. Truth compels one to say that the lowest opinion held is amply justified, as I shall show. It is in the hope of preventing a recurrence of this scandal that the Constitutional amendment is urged. So long as a President is eligible for re-election he will almost invariably seek a second term, and now that Mr. Roosevelt has shown that it is not treason to the Republic to aspire to a third term, there is nothing to prevent a President remaining in the White House as long as he can manipulate conventions and