294 Quadrupeds, 



and therefore every instant widening the distance between myself and 

 the rat, which was partially concealed among tall flags on the river 

 bank. But I had certainly two, and, I think, three, shots at him, and 

 the effect of the first was just to make him show himself more plainly. 



A short time after, I was on a visit in Norfolk, at a place about six 

 miles from Brandon. Here there were many ditches, dividing the 

 meadows from one another, and in the banks of these ditches there 

 were immense numbers of water-rats. If I chanced to catch one asleep 

 and threw a stone at it, and the stone made much noise and splash, 

 the rat generally behaved in the same way, and waited patiently until 

 a second or third missile had been directed at it. 



And very recently I have witnessed a more striking instance still ; 

 for in this case there was no noise to startle, much less to terrify. 1 

 was fishing in the stream which flows near my residence, and on jump- 

 ing across a small burn running into it, came upon a water-rat. It 

 took to the water immediately, of course : but the water was shallow 

 and it could not dive ; and the current was strong and it could not 

 make much progress. When it had swum about six or eight feet in- 

 to the stream, I tapped it with the end of my fly-rod, which is not 

 thicker than a crow-quill, and therefore could not inflict a very severe 

 blow, even if I were willing to risk breaking it, by striking with some 

 degree of force. On receiving the tap the rat attempted to dive ; but 

 in vain, by reason of the shallowness of the water. I repeated the tap, 

 and the rat took no notice of it. I then gave it a third touch, when 

 it turned directly round, put its head under water (which was now a 

 little deeper), and swam directly to my feet ; thus running headlong 

 into the danger it had endeavoured to avoid. Had it turned its head 

 down-stream, it would have been in safety immediately ; but in the 

 extremity of its alarm, occasioned by my sudden appearance and 

 heightened by the application of the rod, it seemed to lose all self-pos- 

 session, and to be incapable of showing that instinctive apprehension 

 of what is best to be done, which all animals, wlien threatened by dan- 

 ger, are so ready to exhibit. 



I know of nothing analogous to this (what I suppose to be) mani- 

 festation, on the part of the water-rat, of the effects of terror. The 

 Hanover rat betrays nothing of the kind; and I have shot at them al- 

 most as often as at water-rats. They frequently visited my rooms at 

 Cambridge, and, in the long vacation, in considerable numbers : in- 

 deed I have shot them as I sat reading. Yet even here, although the 

 report of the pistol seemed louder, from the circumstance of the sound 

 being confined, and though the rat shot at might be a juvenile mem- 



