268 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PL A Y 



to the army of rats on the Middlesex shore. The 

 bridges were crowded with sightseers, watching the 

 line of wharves burning, when the river was seen to 

 be covered with rats swimming across, from the 

 direction of the burning buildings. The number 

 was estimated at many thousands, and one of the 

 crew of a river fire-engine, which was moored off" the 

 burning wharves, states that the greater number of 

 the rats entered the water almost at the same time, 

 apparently struck by some common and simultaneous 

 conviction that safety could only be found on the 

 opposite side of the Thames. The rural rat, partly 

 because it is in the main a clean-living, c outdoor ' 

 beast, does not inspire the repugnance which every 

 one feels for the urban or ' sewer ' rat. Its cleverness, 

 its courage, and the audacity and cunning with which 

 it maintains its position in the midst of dangers which 

 would daunt any other wild creature, gain for it a 

 measure of that admiration which is part of the 

 tribute paid to depraved greatness. In its character 

 as an outdoor wild animal, it has recently received 

 compliments from such an accurate observer as Mr 

 A. Trevor-Battye, while as a beast of the chase it 

 is the subject of an admirable monograph Studies 

 in Rat-catching* by Mr H. C. Barkley. Mr Barkley's 

 book might, for minute detail and devotion to the 



* Longmans & Co. 



