436 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



that animals, using the term in its widest sense, when pressed with 

 hunger, will eat almost anything. — E. P. Butterfield (Wilsden). 



Nesting of Rats and a Sequel. — The following incident, which 

 might have terminated in serious consequences, took place in 

 Bedfordshire a few years ago. A payment of £20 was to have been 

 made to an illiterate person to whom the knowledge of payment by 

 cheque was limited so that cash was preferred. As the man failed to 

 call for the money as arranged, it was wrapped up in a piece of news- 

 paper and hidden away in some wood, in the manger of an old stable 

 which was then serving as a workshop. A day or so following, the 

 employer had occasion to take away half a sovereign from this amount, 

 and in so doing possibly revealed the hiding-place to a man who was 

 employed by him in that workshop. When the money was required, 

 about a week afterwards, it was missing, and suspicion naturally fell 

 upon the Jman who was the only person that had access to this 

 particular part of the premises. This was supported further when 

 soon afterwards the man left his employment and after taking a 

 holiday at the seaside, then purchased tools, etc., and set up in 

 business on his own account. The venture proved unsuccessful and 

 once again the man was offered employment, provided he could give a 

 satisfactory account of where the money came from with which he had 

 commenced his former business, and show that he had had no hand in 

 the removal of the missing gold. The explanation was given that the 

 money was loaned to him by a sister, and he requested his former 

 employer to interview her. For various reasons, and partly from the 

 wish not to bring in a third party, this course was not pursued and 

 the man was eventually reinstated. When I personally raised the 

 question of the wisdom of such an action with the employer, he 

 remarked : " Perhaps it is better to employ a man one suspects is 

 dishonest, and keep temptation out of his way, than take another one 

 knows less about." In the meantime the business, excepting this one 

 workshop, had been removed to another part of the town. Some twelve 

 months later this man went to see his employer, and took with him 

 £9 10s. in loose gold which he had found in some rubbish that Eats 

 had scratched out between the timber stacked upon the earthen 

 floor. The following morning all the timber was removed, the 

 accumulation of rubbish sifted, and the remaining £10 recovered; 

 the explanation, of course, being that the newspaper in which the 

 money was wrapped had been dragged away some 20 ft. distant 

 along the manger and been used for nesting purposes in the meantime, 

 and afterwards displaced, with the gold, by renewed burrowings of 

 these or other Eats, — J, Steele Elliott, 



