St. Landry democrat., 1890-04-05
a Rats Sandwich.

If any one had related to us how he had
seen a rat lunching upon sandwiches com
posed of crums and tadpoles we cannot
doubt that his communication would have
bsen listened to with more or less success
fully dissembled incredulity. Yet of that
spectacle we we're ourselves witnesses not
many months ago. 1t had suggested itself
TO some mem bers OF the household during
last spring to keep large shol.' OF tad
poles in deep earthenware milkpan on a
window stool, for the purpose of watching
| their evolution into frogs For some time
that quaint process went ON swimmingly,
being apparently in no way impeded by
the abnormal glaziness and rigidity of its
subjects environments, which, however,
was judiciously mitigated at the bottom
by deposit of pebbles and mud. But,
while the shrinking of tails and sprouting
of legs were still in full progress, it began
to be observed with pain that the number
OF tadpoles was rapidly and steadily de-
creasing. Day by day we had to notice q
very perceptibe decline in the population
of our aquarium there could be no doubt
that in every four and twenty hours GER
tain contingent of tadpoles somehow van
ished, melted into thin air, leaving not q
track behind, any more than did one of
the silvery bubbles which they were per-
petually sending up to wink out of exist
ence on the surface.
Many theories were started to account
for this unhappy state of affairs, but it
was pronounced to be impossible that. as
some one suggested, patches of tadpoles,
attaining to frogdom suddenly, should
have tbereupon overleaped the rim of
their dwelling place, for the drop of
iol he Nv of
quitting the window stool, would have
been beyond the powers of even the ma
turest and most athletic frog, and the
pavement underneath showed none of
those mangled remains which must have
resulted from any such reckless attempt.
suggestion that it might perhaps take
two or three tadpoles to make one frog was
dismissed as still more untenable; no
plausible q pri0ri explanation of these
mysterious disappearances had been de-
vised when one day all hypothesis were
rendered unnecessary by ocular demon
stration.
We CHANGED to look out of the window;
and, behold, sitting upon the rim of the
pan, brown rat, with mild and intelli
gent cast of countenance, and unusually
large bright eyes! Upon the surface of
the water floated the bread crumbs with
which our proteges were always kept lib
orally supplied. One of these fragments
the newcomer secured with a rapid sweep
of his left forepaw, while with the other,
narrowing to relate, he deftly scooped up
wriggline and reluctant tadpole. and,
having thus provided himself with the
materials for his sandwich, he disposed
of it in an incredibly short time, and i'm
mediately set about the capture and man
ufacture of second. How many he ate
thus at that sitting we are not in position
to state accurately, as his movements were
bewilderingly rapid as well as marvelously
dexterous, considering the sliperiness alike
of the narrow ledge upon which he bal
anced himself and of the slithery prey for
which he fshed. But we cannot doubt
that when he slid down and glided unob-
strusi7ely away, descending the creeper
up which he had climbed, the tadpoles,
whom he had left gyrating in violent per
turbation round their troubled waters,
must have lost at least dozen of their
comrades through the unerriug sweep of
that willy paw, which they had not the
sense to evade by taking refuge in the in
accessible mud at the bottom of their dish
In fact they betrayed upon this occasion
so marked an absence of intelligence and
presence of mind that our sympathies all
inclined toward the angler, and We must
own that we felt some chagrin when, on
the morrow, he fell victim to the snares
of trap set in readiness for him by the
enraged proprietors of his fishing grounds.
For though, strictly speaking, he was, no
doubt not justified il devouring our tad
poles with privy paw, still, like Prospero's
delicate Ariel, "a grace he had devour-
ing" and it was melancholy, further, to
reflect that his accomplishment should,
after our uncomfortable human fashion,
have merely paved the way to his undo
ing.-The u uStrated Neaos.