Rats are also very cunning in the water, say a pit or a river.  Now, a Rat can exist in water for at most about seven minutes, and you will find when a dog is swimming after a Rat that the Rat is watching the dog all the time, for as soon as the dog gets within a yard of the Rat the latter will dive under water and come to the surface again about 15 yards away.  When the dog has tired the Rat out with swimming, you will very often see the Rat dive again and come up very quietly and just put its nose out of the water, or rest its head on a floating leaf.  It is so cunning that it will remain still there, and if the leaf or reed gives way it will come up at the water side and just thrust out its nose to breathe.  By this means the dog loses full scent of the Rat.

I have also noticed how useful are the Rat’s front paws and tail.  I have seen a Rat on the top of a swill tub at a pigsty, when the swill has been about ten inches from the top of the tub.  The Rat was too cunning to jump down on the wet swill and drown, but I saw it reach as far down the inside of the tub as possible with its front paws and scrape the grease from around the sides!  I have also seen the same Rat, when unable to scrape any further down the tub sides, turn round, clutch the top of the tub with its front paws, dip its tail into the swill, and then gain the top of the tub and commence licking its tail.

I have also tried an experiment with the same tub, which consisted of covering the top of the wet swill with bran, which floated on the surface, and placing a bit of lumpy swill in the middle of the bran, in the hope that the Rat would jump on the bran in the expectation of getting at the swill in the middle.  However, it did not do so, no doubt instinctively guided against the danger.

I have also watched Rats run round a set wire or cage trap for a full hour.  I have seen them go half way in and out again, look at the bait and never touch it, but go away and never return to the same trap that night.  These examples show the cunning instinct of Rats.

There is, however, one power that the Rat is not favoured with, and I am afraid if they were they would be a greater pest.  It is the ability of high jumping.  A Rat cannot, I think, jump higher than three feet six inches, and will have to be very hungry before doing that to obtain food.

Many people may not know how fierce Rats are when fighting.  Let me instance.  I have often taken, one in each hand, two good Rats from my cage before a hundred spectators and set the Rats at each other on the top of a table.  To see them fight would be surprising.  They will fight like two bulldogs.  When they have got a grip of each other with their teeth I have taken away my hands, and they have stuck and shook one another for at least half-a-minute, although you must understand that the moment they are loose of one another they are off if you don’t catch them again.