Rat-catchers are necessary when rats are very numerous, but rats appear to be very capricious, abounding in some seasons and scarce in others.  My particular rat-catcher was not a very highly evolved specimen of humanity; he was thin and hungry-looking with an angular face, bearing a strong resemblance to the creatures against whom he waged warfare; he had a wandering, restless and furtive expression, and appeared to be perpetually on the lookout for his prey, or for manifestations of their cunning and other evil characteristics in the humanity with which he came in contact.  His terms were, “no cure, no pay,” which impressed one with his confidence in his own remedies; but these were profound secrets, and I had to be content with the assurance that he used nothing harmful to man or domestic animals.  He was certainly successful, and effectually cleared the ricks and buildings at one of my outlying places previously badly infested; no dead rats were ever found, but all disappeared very soon after I engaged him.

It is well known that rats will unexpectedly desert quarters which they have occupied for a long time, and travel in large bodies to a new locality.  An old man told me that, in walking by the brook-side footpath from Aldington to Badsey, he once encountered one of these armies; they looked so threatening and were in such numbers, that he had to turn aside to allow them to pass, as they showed no signs of giving way for him.

One morning my bailiff came in to say that a bean-rick had suddenly been taken possession of by an immense number of rats, where shortly before not one could have been found.  A man going to the rick-yard quite early had seen the roof of the rick black with them; they were apparently drinking the dew hanging in drops on the straws of the thatch.  They were so close together, “so thick,” as he expressed it, that one was killed by a stone thrown “into the brown” of them.  We sent for the thrashing machine a day or two later, and killed over seventy, and many escaped.  Every dead rat was plastered with mud underneath, especially on their tails, and it was evident that they had only just arrived when first seen, and had travelled some distance, probably the evening before, along the clayey overhanging bank of the brook.

We always had great numbers of water-rats about brook; they are no relation of the land-rat, having blunter, noses, shorter tails, and very soft fur.  They have not the loathsome appearance of the land-rat, and live, almost entirely, on water-weeds, rushes, and other vegetable matter.  It is pretty to see them swimming across a stream; they dive when alarmed, and remain out of sight a long time; they never leave the water or the bank, and are quite innocent of depredations on corn.