234 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
is the strange story, which is rather sad and at the 
same time a little funny. 
This was not a case of “wild nature won by 
kindness”; the rat simply thrust itself and _ its 
friendship on the woman of the cottage: and she, 
being childless and much alone in her kitchen and 
living-room, was not displeased at its visits: on 
the contrary, she fed it; in return the rat grew 
more and more friendly and familiar towards her, 
and the more familiar it grew, the more she liked 
the rat. The trouble was, she possessed a cat, a 
nice, gentle animal not often at home, but it was 
dreadful to think of what might happen at any 
moment should pussy walk in when her visitor 
was with her. Then, one day, pussy did walk in 
when the rat was present, purring loudly, her tail 
held stiffly up, showing that she was in her usual 
sweet temper. On catching sight of the rat, she 
appeared to know intuitively that it was there as 
a privileged guest, while the rat on its part seemed 
to know, also by intuition, that it had nothing to 
fear. At all events these two quickly became 
friends and were evidently pleased to be together, 
as they now spent most of the time in the room, 
and would drink milk from the same saucer, and 
sleep bunched up together, and were extremely 
intimate. 
By and by the rat began to busy herself making 
a nest in a corner of the kitchen under a cupboard, 
and it became evident that there would soon be 
an increase in the rat population. She now spent 
