152 CEIME AND CKIMINALITY. 



knives, three in number ; a large carving knife, fork, and 

 steel, several large plugs of tobacco .... an old purse con- 

 taining some silver, matches and tobacco; nearly all the 

 small tools from the tool closets, among them several large 

 augers .... all of which must bave been transported some 

 distance, as they were originally stored in different parts of 



the house The outside casing of a silver watch was 



disposed of in one part of the pile, the glass of the same 

 watch in another, and the works in still another.' 



In this singular case, while certain articles had been 

 utilised for instance, the nails and the hemp-fibre all the 

 other articles so carefully stored up and classified appear to 

 have been utterly useless to the thief, as was also the analysis 

 or arrangement by the rat of the stolen goods. More par- 

 ticularly is the dissection and separate arrangement of the 

 parts of a watch here inexplicable. But the whole pheno- 

 mena are comparable with the hoards and doings of the 

 human kleptomaniac, as I have had occasion elsewhere to 

 describe them. 1 



In this rat-hoard it is desirable to remark on the prepon- 

 derance of bright, glittering, metallic objects. In other parts 

 of this book it has been shown that such objects, especially 

 when of silver or steel, exercise a mysterious influence over 

 many animals fascinate or attract them in an inexplicable 

 way. For the animals do not appear to make any use of 

 them. They simply but sedulously pilfer and stow them 

 away, adding one article to another, without aim and with- 

 out end. It might be supposed that, in some instances at 

 least, articles of gold or silver, jewellery, coins, or spoons, 

 might become objects of ornament or amusement, playthings 

 to themselves or their young. But there is no evidence that, 

 as a rule, the articles stolen are applied to any such purpose 

 or to any purpose at all. On the contrary, they are usually, 

 like the knives, forks, and spoons in the rat's hoard, simply 

 stowed away, added to the pile. Possibly, nay probably, the 

 accumulators take pleasure in their hoards, just as the human 



1 For instance, in ' Excelsior,' a publication of the Murray Koyal Institu- 

 tion for the Insane, near Perth, in the numbers for 1866 and 1872. 



