Quadrupeds, 787 



viz. : How do rats carry off hen's eggs ? which struck me at the time 

 I heard it as incredible, though the story was told, if I remember 

 aright, by a perfectly credible eye-witness ; but when I had grown 

 wiser, and had learned somewhat more of the habits of the animal 

 creation, I believed it, and do still believe it. This person related 

 that he witnessed a party of rats in the exercise of their filching pro- 

 pensities ; one of the party grasped the egg with all four paws, and, 

 turning on his back, was dragged away by the tail up a flight of 

 steps by the rest of the party ; so much for its sagacity. Again, for 

 its courage : who will venture on a single combat with a rat in a 

 closed room, whence the rat has no means of retreat ? I, for my part, 

 would rather not. I remember, when at college, a man recounting in 

 the lecture-room, not less to the amusement of the tutor than of the 

 oth£r " men" around him, a desperate conflict in which he had been 

 engaged the previous night ; and wherein the rat, for some time, had 

 the best of it, though the man was full six feet high ; but then it 

 must be told that the battle was fought by candle light, his only 

 weapon a poker, and himself in his shirt. 



Methinks these good qualities should inspire some little respect 

 for this, nevertheless, real bane of the farmer ; though probably you 

 and your readers, like myself, will ever be content to like him best at 

 a distance. No human being can be more prudent in making pro- 

 vision for himself and family than is the rat. When I was in Hert- 

 fordshire, a few years back, I had, on one occasion, laid in our winter 

 store of walnuts ; on the second evening it was discovered by the 

 rats, and though I did suspect that mischief was going on, from cer- 

 tain noises that issued from behind the wainscoting, I had not sur- 

 mised the extent of the mischief likely to be committed ; for, on the 

 following morning, I found, to my chagrin, that the whole stock, 

 amounting to two bushels, had disappeared, excepting only three or 

 four that were bad. I was once paying my first visit to a gentleman 

 of rank in the island, when, after I had rung the bell, I saw, lying 

 dead, a rat that I longed to put in my pocket, but was afraid of de- 

 tection. I cannot say I was deterred from the commission of petty 

 larceny by conscientious scruples, but I did not feel sure the servant, 

 on opening the door, might not imagine it was some valuable of his 

 master's he had caught me stowing away so hurriedly, or that some of 

 the numerous workmen about might not spread abroad reports not 

 quite favourable to my good name, should they have seen me pocket 

 they knew not what ; or to my state of mind, had they discerned the 

 real object of depredation. But it was a weakness unworthy of a 



