Curiosities of natural history / by Francis T. Buckland.

  • Francis Trevelyan Buckland
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Curiosities of natural history / by Francis T. Buckland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    112/466 (page 76)
    found a great brown male of the common kind coiled up in the nest. The white one was gone, and the young ones all killed and partly devoured. This brown rat must have climbed up a perpendicular smooth iron bar to get at the cage. Out of the hole in the cage where the intruder got in the white mother might have got out if she liked, but she preferred staying at home and looking after her young ones. The Yankees, I am told, take advantage of the can- nibal propensities in the rats. A clever Yankee being much troubled with rats, and being determined to get rid of them, tried every possible plan, but without suc- cess. At last he got a lot of rats and shut them in a cage ; they devoured one another till only a single one was left. He then turned this one loose, who, ex- cited with the blood of his fellow-rats, and having be- come a genuine cannibal, killed and ate all the wild rats he could find on the premises. A good Yankee story. I was a witness to the following circumstance: A dog had been killing some rats for a match, and one wounded rat was left alive in the rat-pit. Twenty other rats were then placed in for another dog. These fresh comers found out the wounded one, and instantly, though there were many people looking on, set upon him and killed him then and there. One of the rats seemed to take the part of the wounded one, but a gigantic rat left the wounded one he was murdering and attacked the would-be rescuer and killed him also. This seems a wise provision, though at first sight a cruel one. If a wounded rat got into a hole he would linger there perhaps many days in a dying state. His fellow-rats, however, soon find him out and put him out of his misery. At the same time it is a salutary