one place to another, which it is well known they are in the habit of doing occasionally. He stood perfectly still while the whole assembly passed close to him. His astonishment, however, was great when he saw an old blind rat, which held a piece of stick at one end in its mouth, while another rat had hold of the other end of it, and thus conducted its blind companion. He also says that it is very evident, from several instances, that the rat is not insensible to kindness, and that it may be powerfully attached to those who feed and caress it.
The Rev. W. Cotton gives an instance of fidelity among rats:—“On a bright moonlight evening, we discovered two rats on the plank coming into the ship. The foremost was leading the other by a straw—one end of which each held in its mouth. We managed to capture them both, and found, to our surprise, that the one led by the other was stone blind. His faithful friend was trying to get him on board, where he would have comfortable quarters during a three years’ cruise.”
The maternal affection of rats for their young is not, perhaps, to be surpassed by any other animal; and so far from their being the low, degraded, dirty, ignoble creatures that many imagine them to be, they are, on the contrary, perfectly aristocratic in their habits and notions. Sir W. Jardine says: “The rat is a very cleanly animal; for even when its residence is in a ditch, or sewer, in the midst of all sorts of filth, it almost invariably preserves itself from pollution; and in parts remote from towns its fur is often possessed of considerable beauty. Although, on account of the injury it inflicts upon us, and the abhorrence with which in childhood we are taught to regard it, few persons will be apt to discover much beauty in a rat; nevertheless, any one who has taken notice of rats, can bear testimony to the fact, that in all their leisure time they are constantly sitting on end cleaning their fur, and seem perfectly restless and unhappy till their jackets are dry and clean, and arranged in proper order.”
In the spring the rats leave their winter establishments, and mostly repair to some watering-place to spend the summer months. Here the mother teaches her young the recreations of swimming, fishing, and hunting.
But in their more infantine days she is one of the kindest of nurses, eternally washing their little faces, backs, bellies, legs, and feet, by rolling them from side to side, and licking them over with all the tenderness and solicitude of any other mother. But if an enemy intrudes, she will protect them with all the vicious determination of a tigress, and if she does not succeed in beating him off, she will relinquish the contest only with her life. So, if the old rat should call, who in some cases is a barbarous old brute, she will show him her teeth, and squinny at him till he decamps; but, should she be from home, the infanticidal old cannibal will sometimes eat up her children, and then walk doggedly to his retreat, and lay himself down most tranquilly to digest them.
Two men in a boat were gathering rushes on the borders of the Avon, when a water-rat entered the boat, arranged some of the rushes, and gave birth to seven young ones, which the men at once destroyed. The rat immediately set up such piteous cries, that they endeavoured to drive her from the boat, but she would not go; so they killed her also.
Doubtless she sought this asylum to save her young from the jaws of the old tyrant, and so lost her own life, which says but little for her destroyers, where, from first to last, such a confiding appeal was made to their humanity. But let it be borne in mind that the male rat is not the only animal that will devour the young of its own species. Pigs, both male and female, will sometimes do it; as also tomcats and rabbits. But, in a wild state, the doe rabbit always goes a considerable distance from the main burrows, where the buck is not likely to travel. Here she makes a hole some two feet long, and deposits her young, which, when she leaves to go abroad for food, she always covers the entrance close up with earth, so that the buck is not likely to find them in her absence. As to boar-pigs, it is well known that if they come across a litter of young pigs, and the opportunity offers, they will chump them up like sweetmeats. Consequently the male rat, however disgusting, must not be individually condemned for murder and cannibalism.
A writer in the “Zoologist” says that he was once an eyewitness to an act of affection on the part of a female rat; which he thought worth recording, more especially as the rat is considered to have little in its character to recommend it. Some persons, who were cutting a field of barley, mowed over a rat’s nest full of young ones, when the mother, who was suckling them, instead of running away, remained in the nest, and, in her anxiety for their preservation, actually laid so fast hold of the scythe that she was obliged to be shaken off. This nest was made in a slight depression of the ground, and not under the ground, as usually is the case.
The same gentleman gives another instance of considerable cunning and courage evinced by a water-rat. He was walking by a brook one day, and saw a water-rat run past on the opposite bank in great haste. Almost immediately afterwards came a very fine stoat, hot in pursuit, but evidently running by scent. Backwards and forwards ran both animals within a certain space for upwards of ten minutes, when both made a dead pause within a yard of each other, and he expected to see the rat fall a prey every moment. But such was not the case; for, in an instant, she rushed forward upon the stoat with such open-mouthed fury, that he ran away, and she in turn became the pursuer; nor was she content until she had driven her voracious enemy fairly out of the neighbourhood. There is no doubt that the rat was a female which had young, and was prompted by maternal affection to display the courage she did. But what surprised him was, that she never retreated to a hole, or dived under water, which would have been an almost certain mode of escaping danger; but that would not have prevented her wily enemy from scenting out her young.
The same writer gives another instance of intense affection in the rat. Some gintraps were set for the purpose of taking vermin. On the following morning a large female rat was discovered in one of them, caught by one of her fore legs, but squatting over a nest containing six young ones. The poor animal, regardless of all pain, during the previous night had actually, with the fore paw which was at liberty, and probably with the assistance of the hind feet, contrived to scrape together a quantity of the neighbouring grass, and formed the nest,—thus providing for the warmth and comfort of her young, although she was tortured with iron teeth, and almost disabled by her position in the trap.
Of the unqualified affection of a rat for her young, I was witness to a most interesting and curious instance. I had a sort of compound collection, half aviary and half menagerie. My stock was composed of rabbits, pigeons, ferrets, fowls, cats, dogs, white mice, hedgehogs, guinea-pigs, and canaries. Besides these there was a host of native song-birds and a cock pheasant. I did not keep them like the happy family, all together, but in separate departments. Among these I had an enormous polecat ferret, blind in one eye. He was perhaps the largest ferret I ever saw, and was so tame and attached, that he would follow me in the streets, or anywhere else, like a little dog. In the fields I often used to amuse myself by running away, and giving him the trouble to find me out; still I never was afraid of losing him, because he always wore a small collar round his neck, with a little bell attached to it. However, we were out together one summer’s evening, in a meadow, which on one end and side is skirted by a river, and on the other by thick hedges. I was lounging carelessly on, when I heard the ferret make an extraordinary loud chattering noise, something between a cackle and a bark, or rather just such a noise as a monkey will make, when some mischievous boys have his tail through the cage, and are tying it tight in a knot—I instantly ran back, and found him in the ditch, in a state of perfect confusion, and bleeding terribly from the nose. I fancied I saw something disappear, but what I could not tell; yet seeing him bleed so profusely, I imagined he must have run a spike into his nose, having recently seen some set in a game-preserve for the purpose of killing dogs as they jumped through the gaps in the hedges. I paused for a moment, and soon found by his action that there was some game at hand. Presently he sniffed about, and made his way carefully to a bundle of dried grass, leaves, &c., in the hedge-bottom at the root of a bush. When, quick as lightning, out dashed a rat at him, and as quickly disappeared. But what with the smart of the bite, and the force she came with, it threw him fairly on his back. Oh, thought I, here’s some sport! He soon recovered himself, though bleeding from a second wound. He made another attempt with the same result, and another bleeding wound. Thus
