192 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [17:5— May, 1920 



got into my pockets and pulled out everything they could find, and 

 then crowded down my coat sleeves. If I sat down where they 

 could get at me they pushed down inside of my trousers from the 

 top. And they never took "no" for an answer. If repulsed they 

 came back, and they kept on coming back until they got what they 

 wanted. They had no sense of propriety whatever. They 

 seemed to think they owned the place and everything in it. 



About this time a gentleman living near by called with his 

 wife. The tatus were as busy as ever, and three of us were quite 

 as busy as they trying to keep them out of mischief. But as 

 soon as they found strangers in the room they at once began to take 

 liberties that quickly sent the lady screaming into the streets. 

 We didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the indignity put 

 upon our guests. 



As a possible relief from the energies of our pets they were then 

 turned out in the back yard where they seemed to be quite at 

 home with the thorns, thistles and spines of the hedges. But 

 ordinary country life seemed to have no particular interest for 

 them, so they looked about until they found an open sewer, and 

 they proceeded to explore that. Imagine my horror! 



They seemed to have found at last something that suited them, 

 and they didn't come back! After waiting awhile we gave them 

 up for lost, and thinking our problem had solved itself we went 

 indoors to straighten things up after the late orgy. 



We had about restored things to approximate order when the 

 cook rushed in gesticulating greatly excited, blazing with indigna- 

 tion, and consigning the tatus to the bottomless pit. They had 

 come back from the sewer covered with filth, and had proceeded 

 to burrow among the clean clothes in the dining room that had 

 just come back from the laundry. Surely we couldn't expect 

 decent people to live in the house with such scandalous creatures ! 



The tatus were captured and thrown into a tub of warm water, 

 scrubbed pretty thoroughly with a broom, rinsed, dried off with a 

 towel, and admitted once more to respectable society, but under 

 protest from both cook and camarada, and strong suspicion from 

 all parties concerned. It was now getting late, and in order to 

 keep responsibility where it belonged I took the tatus in my own 

 room, closed the doors, put breakables where they could not be 

 reached by the pets, and went to bed, leaving them to nose about 

 among the boxes and locked trunks as much as they liked. The 



