Читать книгу The Rat; Its History & Destructive Character - James Rodwell - Страница 15

Having given a variety of well-authenticated facts respecting tame rats, and incidentally adverted to the “Happy Family,” a further description of that interesting group may be acceptable to those who have never seen it; and with this I shall wind up the present chapter.

The “Happy Family” are confined in a large cage about six feet by four, and about four and a half feet high. The whole is surrounded by wires; and the vehicle is drawn about like a truck. The interior is plentifully supplied with soft clean straw, and at night illumined with candles, for the sake of public inspection.

In this singular group you see jackdaws, magpies, hawks, owls, starlings, and pigeons—a white cat and five white kittens—six-and-thirty white rats, in addition to others purely black and purely brown; to which may be added a host of piebald young ones of various colours. There are also guinea-pigs, a monkey, and rabbits; and, to crown the whole, there is a magnificent white ferret, and a black-and-white dog. There they all are, snoozing, sleeping, and rolling over each other in one harmonious concord; and nothing in the shape of discord among them. Such a motley group I never saw before; and taking into consideration their opposite natures, some of which are of the most deadly carnivorous character, it was one of the most interesting sights I ever beheld.

The monkey is very kind to his companions; but, like most other monkeys, extremely mischievous. Nevertheless he has formed an extraordinary attachment to one of the young white rats, and is never happy but when it is within sight. I may say with truth, that Jacko has adopted it as his own, for he nurses and fondles over it just as a mother would over her child, and the rat is perfectly conscious of the attachment, and is quite attached to the monkey; so that let the monkey handle it how he may—which sometimes seemed rather roughly—yet the rat never bites him. But, in order to show me the sagacity of the monkey, his master gave him a biscuit, and bade him feed his baby. He immediately caught his favourite, and, placing it in his lap, gave it a piece, and then had a mouthful himself; yet he had a great objection to the rat having more than its share, which, to tell the truth, was sometimes a very small one.

I have watched this Happy Family for hours together, and all is one unchequered scene of harmony, except now and then, when the monkey, who is king of the colony, is taken with fits of mischief. For instance, when they are all embedded in one corner, and fast asleep, he becomes lonely and unhappy. Down he will jump, and, like a peevish old bachelor, in the bottom of a lumber-cupboard, seeking his lost slipper, he commences groping about for his favourite; and, should he not at once meet with it, he shows his royal indignation by seizing the kittens, rats, ferret, and guinea-pigs by their heads, tails, backs, or bellies. Away he sends them, right and left, flying in all directions to the other end of the cage; but when he finds his favourite his anger ceases. Indeed he is never quiet. Sometimes he will roll his pet on its back, and, with all the anxiety of an affectionate parent, will turn up the fur with one hand, and catch the fleas with the other,—a job he is very fond of, and to which parental solicitude the rat yields with all the complacency of a little fat baby. There is no trouble in finding out which is the monkey’s favourite, for its fur is all turned the wrong way with rough nursing, which makes it look more like a little white hedgehog than a rat. At other times his grotesque majesty will take an instantaneous tour through his dominions. Away he flies, with the rapidity of lightning, all over the cage; and then, bounding from side to side, wantonly sweeps the perches as he passes, upsetting hawks, owls, jackdaws, magpies, starlings, and pigeons, and pitching all the animals that come in his way up to the ceiling; so that, with the fluttering of birds, and the helpless flight of cats, rats, ferret, and guinea-pigs to the ceiling and back again, the cage appears crammed with fluff and feathers; and it is a question whether the great earthquake at Lisbon caused a more instantaneous consternation than does his bobtailed majesty in the Happy Family, when seized with his periodical propensity for polking.