FAMILY MURID.E ; RATS AND MICE. 257 



which must be attributed to intelligence, are very numerous. It 

 has been mentioned to the Author by a trustworthy eye-witness, 

 that she once saw a number of Rats conveying eggs safely down 

 a flight of stairs, from a store-room above to their haunts below. 

 Each egg, held between the fore-paws of a Rat, was delivered 

 by it, over the edge of the step, to another reared upon its 

 haunches on the step below ; and in this manner the eggs were 

 safely transferred from the top to the bottom. In another instance, 

 the following expedient was adopted by a number of Rats, to get 

 at some treacle contained in a jar, of which the neck was too 

 narrow to permit them to obtain direct access to it. One Rat 

 after another inserted his tail into the orifice, and dipped it in 

 the treacle ; then, withdrawing it, he allowed his companions to 

 lick off the fluid; and in his turn received a share of that 

 abstracted by his companions in like manner. 



226. To the group of true Mice belongs the beautiful little 

 Harvest Mouse, the smallest of British quadrupeds, and one of 

 the smallest of the whole class, which constructs a curious 

 globular nest for its young, by weaving together the blades of 

 wheat : and also the Long-tailed Field Mouse, which burrows 

 beneath the ground, or lives in natural excavations, which it 

 enlarges to suit its purpose. Both these are very beautiful little 

 animals, and highly interesting to the natural- 

 ist, though very injurious to the Agricul- 

 turist. A great number of species of the 

 same group exist in different parts of the 

 world, which closely resemble one another. 



227. Connecting the Rats with the Mar- 

 mots is a curious animal of larger size, the 

 Capromys or Hog-rat, which inhabits Cuba, 

 where it is called Hutia or Utia. This is a 

 climbing, not a burrowing species ; it lives 

 in lar g e numbers in the woods of Cuba, 

 and feeds entirely on vegetable matter, 

 reaching the leaves of those short plants which it does not require 

 to climb, by making use of the tail as a third foot, somewhat in 

 the manner of a Kangaroo. In its mode of walking on the 



