The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1874-07-11
Ingenuity Of Rats.

A farmers wife in the west of Scot
land remarked that the cream on the
surface of the milk in her dairy was
often interfered with At first she sus-
pected that some of her children had
taken the unwarrantable liberty of dup
ping pieces of bread III 1t; but she
could find nothing to confirm this sus-
picion; and by-and-by she noticed
strange little streaks of cream on the
edge Of the milk basin, as if a string
had been dipped in and drawn out, so
as to leave a mark At last she dlscov
cred the secret. The cream was stolen
by rats, which got upon the edge OF the
earthenware basins containing themllk,
and not being able to reach down to it,
depth of several inches, and not dnr
ing to attempt to go down, as they
could never have climbed up the smooth
surface again, dipped inthe tips of their
long tails. drew them up loaded
with the rich cream, and licked them.
An arrangement of the basins, such that
the rats could not get upon the edges of
them, put an end to all further dcpre
dations of this kind. There was surely
something more than instinct III this
case in the procedure of the rats.
We have something still to tell re
garding the ingenuity of rats. Afamily in
country house in Hartfordshire had Il
fancy of rearing ducks, but could not
well do SO on account of rats, which
Systematically got hold of and carried
away the young ducklings, even from
close to their mother. With view to
circumvent the rats, the maternal duck
and her young We're housed for the
night under a coop, which admitted OF
no opening for the furtive intrudcrs.
The rats were not easily to be cheated
of their prey On discovering that the
mother duck and herfamily were closely
shrouded from intrusion, they devised
a pretty plan Of engineering, which was
eminently successful. In the course of
a single night they eXcavated tunnel,
going below the outer edge of the coop
to its interior, and thus very neatly,
without producing any alarm, stole
every duckling from under the guard
lance of the mother.
} Two rats belonging to the same col
ony performed feat quite as ingen
ious. 4 trap which was baited for their
capture was habitually plundered with
: out securing a single rat They had
evidently invented some plan for safely
stealing away the bait, and what the
plan was could only be learned by set
ting a watch to the trap. We shall ex-
plain how the theft was effected The
| trap was Of a kind which Is som etimef
employed for catching mice. 1t was 4
box with a sliding door which was sUls-
tanned by mocha nism connected with
the bait, which beingnibbled the door de
scends and makes the mouse a priOner.
The rats saw through the devise. ano
resorted to the following very simple
but etfiectual method of taking away the
bait, which was n piece of toaste,
cheese, and yet escape Imprisonment
One of them placed itself under the
door, SO that it might fall on It's back
while the other crept III and successful,
+; carried off the morsel of cheese TIL,
) first rat then drew itself from under the
door and joined it's companion. Thu
demonstration of rat intelligence, like thu
preceding incident, is of recent occur
HdH1bers's Journal.
, BY the time man has achieved hi
, fifth wife, contemporary Is unreserv
eddy of the opinion that no one can ac
cuse him of not laying up his treasure
in heaven