The Superior Times

A Plague of Rats.

A Rangoon correspondent of the London Times writes to that journal as follows: "While Bengal has lately struggled through a famine crisis, the Karens country, lying on the confines of Burmah proper, has narrowly escaped a crisis of the same kind, but in this instance, rats, and not drought, were the cause of the scarcity. It appears that certain parts of Burmah are periodically visited by a plague of rats. Hosts of them march across the country and attack the roots of the crops and the grain in the villages, and actually drive out the populace, and cause whole villages to be deserted by the depredations. Such a plague had appeared near Tounghoo, and some suffering had arisen in consequence, but the Government appear to have provided food for those in want of it, and all fear of famine is now averted. A forester but a few weeks since, as he was going to visit the teak forests, rented by a large firm in Bombay, witnessed the passage of an army of rats as they crossed the Sittang. He was at the time gliding down stream in his boat, and the boatman called his attention to a large black mass swarming down the high banks. These turned out to be rats, and as they swam across the river they kept a kind of military formation. He represented their numbers to have been myriads. They passed close to the boat, and were large field-rats. The late Dr. Mason, in his book on Burmah, mentions the plague they were to the country, but until their depredations had spread to such a large extent as they did last year their presence was ignored. It appears that they generally keep near hilly plains at seasons when the nuts or fruits in the hills fail them."