This is a short but I believe interesting extract that I've taken from a very old book called 'A Pot of Smoke. Being the life and adventures of dan Owain' by an author called RM Lockley. Its a pre 1940s book and is one that I intend getting a copy of. See what you think.
One autumn morning when three of us were coming home after a night watching for poachers,tired and done up physically and mentally, for it was cold, and there had been a skiff of snow covering everything that night, we heard a curious sound on the hill road. It was like the whistling of a bunch of starlings, only more squeaky.
Suddenly I discerned the road ahead of us was black instead of white. The rats were coming - the whole army of them covering the road until it curved out of sight up the hill fifty yards away. Only one thought struck us three - to get up somewhere high! Harrison was for turning them with a shot at first, and Evans was for running away, but we were already dead beat, and I thought it best to leave well alone... besides which the sight held us fascinated. We scrabbled on to a five barred gate... I can tell you it was a horrible feeling to be sitting there with thousands of rats passing by, there wicked eyes gleaming...and for some reason or other very excited with their tails held high up like fox hounds scenting ... squeaking, and some of them looking up at us pretty hungrily, I though. Well, they didn't touch that gate, and, what's more, I noticed they veered off our foot marks as if they could smell something dangerous. After they had gone down the hill we slowly followed...there wasn't a square inch of the road that wasn't pitted with their patterns.
We found afterwards that they'd been thrashing in two or three farms on the mountain ... the rats had been starved out, and with the first skiff of snow they'd joined in a great army to move off at night to the valleys for food. That very night the mansion of Preswillfa was invaded by hundreds of rats which took possession of the old place, filling the wainscots and panelling until the running and squeaking and gnawing frightened the gentlefolk out of their wits. A gamekeeper was called in, and as he was a pal of mine he asked me to assist him in dealing with them. This is what he planned to do ... he meant to get rid of the lot in one go. He blocked up all the holes except those in the attic, and these holes - in the skirting of the attic - he covered with trapdoors regulated by strings slung from the rafters. There we fed them every night... I never thought rats would get so brazen, but in a very few nights the rats were expecting their meals regular as a major-general. They very soon got used to us watching them come out for food ... we'd go up and lay the food, and watch them running around in battalions by the light of a candle ... feeding from the big saucers and troughs and drinking from the pans of water; in fact , they'd hardly wait for us to put the food down before they'd be at it like chickens around out feet. The young master of the house loved to come and watch... well, the attic got in a bad state after two weeks, for hundreds of rats were leaving their droppings ... and the mistress of the house was anxious to proceed with the big coup. So we got busy on the fifteenth night with the strychnine, oatmeal, sugar, and whisky - only a dash of the last. We fed the mixture in little scraps at a time, so as to get them all out and hungry for it. The rats were eating, rushing to water, and rolling over dead ... the sugar made them thirsty, and whisky made them light headed, and the strychnine killed them. Some rushed for the trap doors but we had dropped them, and they would only open inwards, and so they were trapped and none could escape. We killed over five hundred the first night, seventy the next and only three on the third night.
Dan Owen: A Pot of Smoke.