RATS 359 



The nest is a large, neat, round cavity, made of straw or 

 reed, and the htter stuff used for covering the " beet." Later 

 in the season, when the weather is warmer, these rats prefer 

 to nest in the hedgerows, or dry " deel<s," having one or two 

 escape-holes. Here they will rear their young, fighting any 

 interloper to the death, for this rat too can kill a ferret on 

 occasion. It likes the water better than the barn rat, and 

 will in hot weather lie by the dike-side basking. They feed 

 near the water's edge, too, in early spring, when other food is 

 scarce, diving to the broad bottom and getting the " clams " 

 or fresh-water mussels, of which they are fond, taking them 

 to the shore to eat. Their trail, a few inches wide, can be 

 followed for half a mile along a broad, or they will go straight 

 across the marshes to some friendly stack. If in March you 

 wander along a broad, you may find such a trail about a foot 

 from the water, winding through grass jungles, sedge tus- 

 socks, over rotting alder branches lying on the broad beach 

 like mangrove stems, for the alder is the English mangrove. 

 On goes the trail across quaking bogs, where the soft earth 

 yields to your footsteps, and quivers as you pass across. 

 Every now and then on the path you will come across a 

 midden heap, a pile of dry and polished mussel shells, and 

 gnawed gladen roots, lying amongst rotten alder branchlets 

 peeling in the dry air. Mayhap an you follow far enough, 

 you will find the run turns to the water and leads over a 

 polished alder root into the broad — no crumbling platform 

 to take off and climb upon, but a natural landing-stage. 



In winter, should you lie in your boat by the reeds, you 

 will soon be visited by these vicious creatures ; you will see 

 them running up and down your mooring-ropes, and hear 

 them scampering across your plankways, when you lie in 

 your berth trying to sleep. And if, in disgust, you go forth 

 in the moonlight and shoot them with your rifle, you will 

 see them, if you watch, carrying off their dead to eat, for 

 they are cannibals ; or mayhap you hear ducklings cry in 

 the dike as they take them, and you may perchance find a 



