ALCHEMY 



119 



according to the European popular belief, it will pass 

 through the glass of a bottle, and flavour the liquor 

 within. The fact is correct, but not the explanation. 

 Beer and wine are certainly occasionally flavoured by 

 these rats running among the bottles that contain 

 them ; but the odour penetrates not through the 

 bottle, but through the cork. The musk-rat is said by 

 the natives to be blind, like our mole. I do not know 

 if this is really the case, but certainly when running 

 through a house these rats never leave the margin 

 of the walls. 



The house rats that reside in the thatch sometimes 

 find unpleasant fellow-tenants in the shape of wild cats. 

 These are not the real wild cats, but the ordinary cats 

 that have got tired of domesticity, and have taken to 

 finding their own living in the fields. In a house that 

 I once occupied a lady and gentleman cat of this 

 description took up their residence in the thatched 

 roof, and there they reared a family. When the fancy 

 took them they made a meal off the rats. At night, 

 when lying awake, I often heard the chases. There 

 would be a scamper, then a spring and a scream, 

 and I was aware that a rat had been captured, and 

 was now being devoured. 



On one occasion the kittens, when about half grown, 

 somehow found their way at midnight into the dining- 

 room. The noise they made awoke me. I called for 

 the servants ; lights were brought, and the kittens found 

 crouched together in a corner. Small as they were, 

 they displayed the most marvellous activity and the 

 ferocity also of so many young tigers. They ran up 



