OUR FOUR-FOOTED NEIGHBORS. 307 



smoke out the rats, but in vain. Then Dr. Hayes burned 

 charcoal till he nearly set the ship on fire, but it did very 

 little good, and at last the men got used to sleeping with 

 rats among their blankets, and Dr, Kane made rat-soup for 

 dinner. 



3. But on land, when rats find themselves in danger, 

 a whole colony of them will sometimes remove from a build- 

 ing, of their own accord, and set up housekeeping in some 

 safer place. Mr. Buckland tells a story of some men who 

 had made great preparations for destroying all the rats in a 

 certain barn in England. When the morning came the 

 men entered the barn with dogs and ferrets and big sticks, 

 but not a rat could they find. The ferrets ran into the 

 holes, the dogs got under the straw, and the men poked 

 with their sticks, but not a rat could they find. After- 

 ward a laborer came and said that he had seen a whole 

 regiment of rats, on that very morning, as they marched 

 away from that barn to another. 



4. One reason why rats are able to live and thrive in 

 spite of everything is that they show such sagacity in ob- 

 taining focd. A lady of my acquaintance found that the 

 eggs in her kitchen disappeared very fast, and she and her 

 husband, after patient watching, saw the rats at work upon 

 them. She saw one rat lie upon its back and take an egg 

 or two between its paws, with the help of the others. 

 Thus it became a sort of live sled, or wheelbarrow without 

 wheels ; and another rat, taking in its mouth the tail of the 

 first one, dragged the load of eggs to their hole. Other 

 observers have seen parties of rats pushing eggs up or down 

 stairs, two being busy with each egg ; sometimes they have 

 been seen formed in a line, and passing along the eggs from 

 one to another, as firemen pass buckets of water at a fire. 

 This shows the same intelligence that beavers show when 

 they unite in their engineering work. 



5. The same lady told me that she had discovered how 



