e number of at least fifty. In the morning, however, they
were all gone, but the footmarks of the Genet cats told how they had
been removed. Some squeaks the next day in the chimney betrayed the
presence of some very young ones, and a fire of damp grass being
lighted, their destruction was completed by suffocation. This was
perhaps cruel, but it was necessary in self-defence; and I shuddered to
think of how I and my daughter might, in our sleep, have been attacked
by these animals. It is not to be wondered at, when surrounded by
myriads of obnoxious animals, how any tender feelings towards that part
of creation become blunted. At the moment of which I speak, valuable
books, dried plants, papers containing the data of scientific
observations, concerning the survey of the river Gambia to a
considerable distance, were destroyed during the illness of the
observer, by rats and insects.

[Illustration: LEADING THE BLIND RAT.--Page 261.]

One afternoon, the commandant of Bathurst was quietly reading, when he
heard a violent squeaking and hissing in the room below him, which was
even with the ground, and contained stores. He took the key, and
followed by his servants armed with sticks, went to ascertain the cause.
On opening the door they beheld a rat and a venomous serpent engaged in
mortal combat. Nothing could be more beautiful than the action of both
animals; the rat had retreated for a moment, and stood with flashing
eyes; the head of the serpent was reared to receive a fresh attack;
again and again they closed and separated, but the reptile, although
much bitten, gained the victory; the rat fell, foamed at the mouth,
swelled to a great size, and died in a very few minutes. The serpent
glided away, but was afterwards discovered in her nest with several
young ones, in a crack of the store-room wall, close to a staircase,
which we were in the habit of descending daily, and where, in fact, I
had often seen the serpents' heads peeping out, and had waited till they
were withdrawn.

Of the brown rat Mr. Jesse tells the following story:--"The Rev. Mr.
Ferryman, walking out in some meadows one evening, observed a great
number of rats in the act of migrating from one place to another, which
it is known, they are in the habit of doing occasionally. He stood
perfectly still, and the whole assemblage passed close to him. His
astonishment, however, was great, when he saw an old blind rat, which
held a piece of stick at one end in it