THE SAGACITY OF RATS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6072, 8 January 1898, Page 7

THE SAGACITY OF RATS.

Some years ago, as an east coast collier was going up the Thames, a bargeman gave a warning shout, and on looking over the side the sailors saw a rat with its head out of a small hole which it had gnawed in the side of the ship. It was lapping the water like a dog. The collier was beached at once to avovl swamping. It is probable that the bursting of one of these sipping places accounts for the strange stampedes of rats from doomed ships which forms a fixed tradition of the sea. Quise recently an old man died in a Yorkshire seacoast town, who, when a lad in his teens, was the sole survivor from the miseries of a waterlogged ship. For more than two weeks the crew lived on the tops in huts of sails, with no water to drink but the dew they lapped from the masts and yards. As they were unmooring from New York on their fatal voyage, the rats with which the ship swarmed began to troop out in such numbers that they stopped hauling in the cables to let them pass. Stampedes, of course, take place for reasons known only to the rats themselves. As a Clyde schooner lay moored in a West Indian harbour next to A BRIG INFESTED WITH RATS, the crew were startled one day by a shout from the captain of the brig : " See what a brood I am sending you!" and, looking over the side, they saw a stream of rats swimming in Indian file from the brig to the schooner. The sailors immediately pulled up all the loose ropes hanging over the sides, and stationed themselves with sticks and belaying pins in the fore and main chains, while two of the apprentices got into the boats and attacked the rats in the water— the rats with wonderful instinct and skill diving to avoid the blows. A curious case of rat engineering occurred some years ago in Brussels, showing great ingenuity and calculation on the part of the rodents, as well as their system of discipline. A new meat market had been built on Place .Street, and though it was surrounded by water, the butchers (who did not appreciate rats) laid their plans to exclude the whole tribe and nation, and in case any should reach their stands they resolved to head off their march by making the posts in their stalls , unscalable by rats. This they effected by covering the pots' with zinc, and the butchers, looking at the shining surface of the metal, chuckled at their victory. But they reckoned without their host. THE RATS GOT THE MEAT. A watchman posted in the market called a butcher, who came early on the scene, to witness the method. . On a stall hung two quarters of beef and a leg of mutton. The rats spied them, and found them unapproachable. A general call for the nation at large was e-viaently sounded* as the "rate

jections and inequalities to enable them to reaoh the table of the stand, but how to scale the zinc-covered joists was the task for the engineer corps to decide. Their plan was soon formed. The rat army moved up in a solid mass, the stout fellow in front. On these climbed smaller and smaller specimens, till a little rat mountain arose. Then some of the rats, who, evidently BELONGED TO SOME RAT CIRCUB or athletic society climbed to the summit, and one raised himself on his hind legs, resting his forelegs against the zinc. Then another climbed up his back, and, taking post on his shoulder, assumed the same attitude : rat after rat ascended the Jacob's ladder, till at last one reached the cross beam and scampered along it. A ■whole regiment followed, and the meat was attacked, the engineers evidently aiming to drop down what they could for the benefit of the army. The lookers-on,how-ever, were not disposed to let them go too far, and with all their engineering skill the rat army had to leave the field. The whole operation showed a remarkable degree of calculation, a system of discipline, and a ready carrying out of plans, which seems impossible without language as a means of imparting the directions and wishes of the commander.