THIEVES OF THE NIGHT 



No wonder when rats do all this harm that 

 nearly everybody hates and fears them, yet I 

 have known rats which personally were very 

 nice creatures. One of the most charming pets 

 I have ever had — I have had a good many — ^was 

 just an ordinary rat. An ordinary big grey rat 

 from some farm buildings, and he was a big 

 one too ! His history was very strange. In 

 April 1910 I had a pair of pet brown owls, 

 for which I used to get all the rats and mice 

 I could, as they were very fond of such food. 

 One day a workman was getting some potatoes 

 from the bury in the kitchen-garden, when he 

 found hidden in the heap a rat's nest contain- 

 ing nine very small baby rats. Knowing that 

 they were exactly what the owls would like he 

 put the little things into a flower-pot, and the 

 pot beside the harness-room grate, in which 

 a fire was burning, to keep them alive and 

 warm until they could be handed over to me 

 to meet their fate. It was very warm by the 

 fire, and I wonder they were not cooked alive, 

 and Whiskers' history ended there and then; 

 however, they were happy and kicking when I 

 found them. What funny little mites they 

 were ; they might be ' only rats,' but still they 

 were such wee helpless babies that it seemed 



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