26 
THE RAT. 
till their jackets are dry and clear], and arranged in proper 
order." 
In tlie spring the rats leave their winter establishments, 
and mostly repair to some watering-place to spend the summer 
months. Here the mother teaches her young the recreations 
of swimming, fishing, and hunting. 
But in their more infantine days she is one of the kindest 
of nurses, eternally washing their little faces, backs, bellies, 
legs, and feet, by rolling them from side to side, and licking 
them over wath all the tenderness and solicitude of any 
other mother. But if an enemy intrudes, she will protect 
them with all the vicious determination of a tigress, and if 
she does not succeed in beating him ofi', she will relinquish 
the contest only with her life. So, if the old rat should call, 
who in some cases is a barbarous old brute, she will show 
him her teeth, and squinny at him till he decamps ; but, 
should she be from home, the infanticidal old cannibal will 
sometimes eat up her children, and then walk doggedly to 
his retreat, and lay himself down most tranquilly to digest 
them. 
Two men in a boat were gathering rushes on the borders 
of the Avon, when a water-rat entered the boat, arranged 
some of the rushes, and gave birth to seven young ones, which 
the men at once destroyed. The rat immediately set up 
such piteous cries, that they endeavoured to drive her 
from the boat, but she would not go ; so they killed her 
also. 
Doubtless she sought this asylum to save her young 
from the jaws of the old tyrant, and so lost her own life, 
which says but little for her destroyers, where, from first 
to last, such a confiding appeal was made to their humanity. 
But let it be borne in mind that the male rat is not the only 
animal that will devour the young of its own species. Pigs, 
both male and female, will sometimes do it ; as also tom- 
cats and rabbits. But, in a wild state, the doe rabbit always 
goes a considerable distance from the main burrows, where 
the buck is not likely to travel. Here she makes a hole some 
two feet long, and deposits her young, which, when she leaves 
to go abroad for food, she always covers the entrance close 
up with earth, so that the buck is not likely to find them in 
her absence. As to boar-pigs, it is well known that if they 
