Mammiferous Animals. 457 



Singula!' Bobbery committed by Rats, — A clergyman, in the 

 spring of last year (1833), had a brood of turkeys, amounting 

 to a dozen or fourteen in number, when, one morning, all of 

 them, with the exception of two, had disappeared. In vain 

 was the dairymaid sent out in all directions to search for the 

 remainder ; not a vestige was visible, in the shape of body or 

 limb, to account for their death by vermin; and the whole 

 remained a mystery, though suspicions rested on rats, which 

 abounded in the barns and stabling adjacent to the pen in 

 which the mother turkey and her young brood had passed 

 the night. At this moment, when all were either deliberating 

 on what could possibly have happened, or diligently searching 

 for the delinquent, a farmer joined the party, who, in the 

 course of investigation, turned their attention to a slight loose- 

 ness of a piece of turf near the hedge bordering on the lawn, 

 on uplifting which, a hole appeared, and, on stooping down, a 

 slight noise was heard, which induced him to widen the orifice, 

 and insert his hand; when, to the astonishment of all, he 

 pulled out one of the young turkeys, and, on still farther ex- 

 tending their excavations, the whole of the remainder were 

 discovered; and, what was still more extraordinary, all were 

 alive, with the exception of two (if I recollect my friend's 

 report correctly), and apparently not much the worse for their 

 imprisonment; and, to crown the discovery, at the farther 

 extremity the plunderer himself was found. That instinct 

 should have prompted the marauder to carry off one, or even 

 two or more, if his appetite could command such a number, is 

 not beyond credence; but that he should, with a view to future 

 provision, furnish his subterranean larder with a sufficiency of 



pletely, and could not at first tell whether it was done for meat or malice. 

 The fact is, the rat begins his operations under ground among the soft and 

 tender roots, and eats upwards as far as he finds the wood soft enough for 

 his purpose, which is just below the surface : the consequence is, that the 

 tree will often remain erect, and appear to the eye as if nothing had 

 happened to it : but, of course, it throws out no leaves in the spring, and, 

 on taking hold of it, you find it loose, and ready to come up with a touch." 

 We have witnessed the same effect produced upon young willow plants 

 growing in somewhat marshy soil, and have always referred it to the water 

 campagnol, or water rat (Arvicola amphibia). All of the Rodentia have, 

 we presume, the power of cutting with that remarkable evenness which 

 Mr, Bree has mentioned ; hares have, it is well known, in cutting their 

 way (muse) through young hawthorn hedges. The fact of rats gnawing 

 through lead is, perhaps, less remarkable than that of Cerambyx bajulus L. 

 making its way out even through sheet lead one sixth of an inch thick, 

 when this has happened to have been nailed upon the rafter in which the 

 insect has assumed its final metamorphosis. Holes a quarter of an inch wide 

 in their longer diameter have, it is stated, been found drilled by insects of 

 this species through such lead, and lead has been discovered in the stomach 

 of the larva. (See Kirby and Spence's Introd.y ed. 1822, i. 232. note d,)] 



