THE GENESEE FARMER. 



|ouii5 |to]^It's la^e. 



THE TRUMPET-RAT. 



CKLAND, in his Curiosities of Natural History, gives 

 )llowing account of a lawsuit in France about a rat: 

 ny, Buffon and Lacepede have made us acquainted 

 the races of animals which inhabit the two hemi- 

 -es, but none of these savants, any more than the 

 •alists their successors, have made mention of the 

 mpet-rat," and a search for it among the antediluvian 

 als discovered by science will be equally unsuccess- 

 The "trumpet-rat" is modern; its existence dates 

 the time the Zouaves were in Africa. The action at 

 brought by M. Triguel against Girome, a retired 

 ve, makes us believe that this is the animal in ques- 



e Plaintiff. "Gentlemen, this rndividual has cheated 

 ut of a hundred francs ($20), and has, at the same 



wilfully abused my confidence. He knows that I 

 much interested in geology, antiquities, natural 

 ces. I have collections of fossils, of medals, of 

 animals, of curious plants. One day he called upon 

 nd said: 'Sir, I have a kind of animal which has 

 • been mentioned by any naturalist.' ' What is it, 

 'It is a " trumpet-rat." ' ' What do you call the 

 pet- rat?' 'Sir, as the name indicates, it is a rat 

 ti has a trumpet.' ' Where is it ? ' ' On his nose like 

 inoceros.' 'And you have it alive?' 'Alive and 



if you wish to see it, you have only to come to my 

 e.' ' Directly ; come along.' 



was very anxious to see this strange animal. We 

 ed at his house, and he shows me in a cage an enor- 

 1 rat, very lively and in good condition, and which 

 Y had on its nose a sort of slender excrescence about 

 centimetres long (two-thirds of an inch), covered 



hair like the body of the animal, with vertebrae in 

 id, a most extraordinary thing, larger at the summit 



at the base, the contrary to what it ought to be in 

 isual course of things. I ask to examine this phe- 

 iDon ; he puts it in my hand, and holds its paws and 

 that I might examine at my ease this extraordinary 

 pet. I ask him if it were not a dupe, and mystifia- 

 n, and to convince myself I take a pin and force it 

 the trumpet. The animal cried out, winced, and a 

 of blood came from. the prick. The experiment was 

 lusive — it was really a trumpet forming a part of the 



wonder. I ask this man if he would sell his r*t. 

 mswers in the aflBrmative. I ask his price. ■ Fifty 

 ;s. I pay it without any bargaining, and I bring the 

 al home. I invite my friends and servants to see it, 

 ;ry of admiration was universal — I was enchanted. 

 Some one says to me, 'You ought to procure a female 



was a male).' I bad thought of that, but having 

 but one rat at the^ouse of the person who sold it to 

 [ concluded that he had no more. I determined, 

 ifore, to go directly to see, and I ask him if it were 

 ble to get a female. 'Nothing easier,' he answered 

 'I have written to Africa, and they have sent me 

 |r trumpet-rats, of which I have two females.' With 



these words, he brings out a cage full of rats like that 

 which he had sold me. He chooses me a female, for 

 which I pay him fifty francs ($10). I carry it off more 

 enchanted than ever. Some months afterwards the fe- 

 male has young; I look at them, they had not trumpets. 

 I say to myself, ' Without doubt they will sprout here- 

 after like elephants' tusks.' I wait one month, two 

 months, six months ; every day I look at the nose of my 

 rats, but the trumpet never appeared. 



" In a house where I go frequently I make the acquaint- 

 ance of an oflScer who had served a long time in Africa. 

 'Tell me,' I says to him one day — 'you have been in 

 Africa— do you know the trumpet-rats ? ' ' Perfectly,' he 

 answers me. 'Ah! then you can inform me.' I then 

 tell him my story. Then this gentleman began to laugh, 

 as though his sides would split. I say to myself, ' Cer- . 

 tainly then I have been duped.' When he was calm I 

 beg him to explain the motive of his hilarity. Then he 

 tells me what follows : ' The trumpet-rat, he tells me, is 

 not a supernatural thing— it is an invention due to the 

 leisure moment of the Zouaves. This is how they make 

 them : you take two rats; you tie their paws firmly on & 

 board, the nose of one close to the end of the tail of the 

 other; with a pen-knife or a lancet you make an incision 

 into the nose of the rat which is hindermost, and you 

 graft the tail of the first into the nose; you tie firmly the 

 muzzle to the tail, and you leave the two rats in this po- 

 sition for forty-eight hours. At the end of the time the 

 union has taken place, and the two parts have grown to- 

 gether; then you cut off the tail of the rat which is in 

 front to the required length, and let him go, but still ^ 

 keep the other tied to the boird but with his bead loose, 

 and you give him something to eat. At the end of & 

 month or more the wound is perfectly healed, and the 

 eyes of the most curious scrutators would not see a trace 

 of the grafting. This is what these Zouaves do; the 

 rats have no trumpet— you have been deceived, {lei rats, 

 n'ontpas de trompe ; vousavez ete trompe). 



" On the part of the defendant, it was urged that he 

 had certainly made up the rats as has been stated, but be 

 aflBrms that he had not sold them to the. plaintiff as rats 

 'born' with a trumpet. 



The President, " ' Is this true, M. Triguel? 



M. Triguel. " ' You understand. Sir, after the experi- 

 ment which I made with the prick of the pin, which bled 

 and made the animal cry, I ought to believe that the 

 trumpet was natural.' 



The President. " ' Then the defendant told you that it 

 was a particular kind of rat?' 



The Plaintiff. " ' Yes, without doubt.' 



The Defendant. " ' In fact— it is a particular kind of 

 rat.' " 



Verdict for the Zouave— the trumpet-rat maker. 



What two animals had the least luggage in the ark? — 

 The fox and the cock, for they only had a brush and 

 comb between them. 



How many young ladies will reach from London to 

 Brighton, it being fifty miles? Fifty, for a miss is as 

 good as a mile. 



Which is the fastest, heat or cold? Heat, because you 

 can catch a cold. 



