234 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



is the strange story, which is rather sad and at the 

 same time a little funny. 



This was not a case of " wild nature won by 

 kindness " ; the rat simply thrust itself and its 

 friendship on the woman of the cottage: and she, 

 being childless and much alone in her kitchen and 

 living-room, was not displeased at its visits: on 

 the contrary, she fed it; in return the rat grew 

 more and more friendly and familiar towards her, 

 and the more familiar it grew, the more she liked 

 the rat. The trouble was, she possessed a cat, a 

 nice, gentle animal not often at home, but it was 

 dreadful to think of what might happen at any 

 moment should pussy walk in when her visitor 

 was with her. Then, one day, pussy did walk in 

 when the rat was present, purring loudly, her tail 

 held stiffly up, showing that she was in her usual 

 sweet temper. On catching sight of the rat, she 

 appeared to know intuitively that it was there as 

 a privileged guest, while the rat on its part seemed 

 to know, also by intuition, that it had nothing to 

 fear. At all events these two quickly became 

 friends and were evidently pleased to be together, 

 as they now spent most of the time in the room, 

 and would drink milk from the same saucer, and 

 sleep bunched up together, and were extremely 

 intimate. 



By and by the rat began to busy herself making 

 a nest in a corner of the kitchen under a cupboard, 

 and it became evident that there would soon be 

 an increase in the rat population. She now spent 



