70 WILD DENTISTRY. 
squat form of a doe-rat showed, coming 
through the orchard. 
Because she had far longer hindlegs than 
front ones, she hopped; and partly for that 
reason, and partly because of her cruel eyes, 
she did not look nice in the moonlight as she 
moved straight to the chicken-coop. And as 
she lifted her head to sniff round the coop you 
could see her wedge-shaped, yellow teeth gleam. 
Then she discovered that she could squeeze 
in between board and coop, and promptly 
vanished inside. Followed the sounds of 
a rudely awakened mother-hen protesting 
volubly ; there were taps as of a violently 
hurled beak hitting the wood, flutterings, and 
little peepings. 
Twenty minutes later the rat came out, and 
the hen gradually settled down. Behind the 
rat, under the hen, nestled eight fine little 
yellow chicks. They looked just the same as 
before the rat called to see them, but they 
were not; they were all dead—dead, and with 
their blood sucked dry. 
The rat turned to go away, and stopped 
suddenly to spin half-round and fling up her 
head—sniffing. She had seen something glint 
in the moonlight behind an apple-tree. There 
was a sharpish thud, and an odd little sound 
like ‘ phtt !’ from the rat. 
