I Love Animal Stories. Aesop

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СКАЧАТЬ bedroom just below the surface of the ground where it is dry. Usually he has more than one tunnel leading to this, and sometimes an opening from above. This is covered with sticks and grass to hide it, and provides an entrance for fresh air.

      “Jerry lives mostly on roots and plants, but is fond of mussels or fresh-water clams, fish, some insects and, I am sorry to say, young birds when he can catch them. Jerry could explain where some of the babies of Mr. And Mrs. Quack the Ducks have disappeared to. Paddy the Beaver doesn't eat flesh at all.

      “Jerry and Mrs. Jerry have several families in a year, and Jerry is a very good father, doing his share in caring for the babies. He and Mrs. Jerry are rather social and enjoy visiting neighbors of their own kind. Their voices are a sort of squeak, and you can often hear them talking among the rushes in the early evening. That is the hour they like best, though they are abroad during the day when undisturbed. Man is their greatest enemy. He hunts and traps them for their warm coats. But they have to watch out for Hooty the Owl at night and for Reddy Fox and Old Man Coyote whenever they are on land. Billy Mink also is an enemy at times, perhaps the most to be dreaded because he can follow Jerry anywhere.

      “Jerry makes little landings of mud and rushes along the edge of the shore. On these he delights to sit to eat his meals. He likes apples and vegetables and sometimes will travel quite a distance to get them. Late in the summer he begins to prepare for winter by starting work on his house, if he is to have a new one. He is a good worker. There isn't a lazy bone in him. All things considered, Jerry is a credit to his family.

      “But if Jerry is a credit to his family there is one of its members who is not and that is—who knows?”

      “Robber the Brown Rat,” replied Happy Jack Squirrel promptly. “I have often seen him around Farmer Brown's barn. Ugh! He is an ugly-looking fellow.”

      “And he is just as ugly as he looks,” replied Old Mother Nature. “There isn't a good thing I can say for him, not one. He doesn't belong in this country at all. He was brought here by man, and now he is found everywhere. He is sometimes called the Norway Rat and sometimes the Wharf Rat and House Rat. He is hated by all animals and by man. He is big, being next in size to Jerry Muskrat, savage in temper, the most destructive of any animal I know, and dirty in his habits. He is an outcast, but he doesn't seem to care.

      “He lives chiefly around the homes of men, and all his food is stolen. That is why he is named Robber. He eats anything he can find and isn't the least bit particular what it is or whether it be clean or unclean. He gnaws into grain bins and steals the grain. He gets into hen-houses and sucks the eggs and kills young chickens. He would like nothing better than to find a nest of your babies, Peter Rabbit.”

      Peter shivered. “I'm glad he sticks to the homes of men,” said he.

      “But he doesn't,” declared Old Mother Nature. “Often in summer he moves out into the fields, digging burrows there and doing great damage to crops and also killing and eating any of the furred and feathered folk he can catch. But he is not fond of the light of day. His deeds are deeds of darkness, and he prefers dark places. He has very large families, sometimes ten or more babies at a time, and several families in a year. That is why his tribe has managed to overrun the Great World and why they cause such great damage. Worse than the harm they do with their teeth is the terrible harm they do to man by carrying dreadful diseases and spreading them— diseases which cause people to die in great numbers.”

      “Isn't Robber afraid of any one?” asked Peter.

      “He certainly is,” replied Old Mother Nature. “He is in deadly fear of one whom every one of you fears—Shadow the Weasel. One good thing I can say for Shadow is that he never misses a chance to kill a Rat. Wherever a Rat can go he can go, and once he finds a colony he hunts them until he has killed all or driven them away.

      “When food becomes scarce, Robber and his family move on to where it is more plentiful. Often they make long journeys, a great number of them together, and do not hesitate to swim a stream that may be in their path.”

      “I've never seen Robber,” said Peter. “What kind of a tail does he have?”

      “I might have known you would ask that,” laughed Old Mother Nature. “It is long and slim and has no hair on it. His fur is very coarse and harsh and is brown and gray. He has a close relative called the Black Rat. But the latter is smaller and has been largely driven out of the country by his bigger cousin. Now I guess this is enough about Robber. He is bad, all bad, and hasn't a single friend in all the Great World.”

      “What a dreadful thing—not to have a single friend,” said Happy Jack.

      “It is dreadful, very dreadful,” replied Old Mother Nature. “But it is wholly his own fault. It shows what happens when one becomes dishonest and bad at heart. The worst of it is Robber doesn't care. To-morrow I'll tell you about some of his cousins who are not bad.”

      Chapter XIV

       A Trader and a Handsome Fellow

       Table of Contents

      “Way down in the Sunny South,” began Old Mother Nature, “lives a member of the Rat family who, though not nearly so bad as Robber, is none too good and so isn't thought well of at all. He is Little Robber the Cotton Rat, and though small for a Rat, being only a trifle larger than Striped Chipmunk, looks the little savage that he is. He has short legs and is rather thick-bodied, and appears much like an overgrown Meadow Mouse with a long tail. The latter is not bare like Robber's, but the hair on it is very short and thin. In color he is yellowish-brown and whitish underneath. His fur is longer and coarser than that of other native Rats.

      “He lives in old fields, along ditches and hedges, and in similar places where there is plenty of cover in which he can hide from his enemies. He burrows in the ground and usually has his nest of dry grass there, though often in summer it is the surface of the ground. He does not live in and around the homes of men, like the Brown Rat, but he causes a great deal of damage by stealing grain in the shock. He eats all kinds of grain, many seeds, and meat when he can get it. He is very destructive to eggs and young of ground-nesting birds. He has a bad temper and will fight savagely. Mr. and Mrs. Cotton Rat raise several large families in a year. Foxes, Owls and Hawks are their chief enemies.

      “But there are other members of the Rat family far more interesting and quite worth knowing. One of these is Trader the Wood Rat, in some parts of the Far West called the Pack Rat. Among the mountains he is called the Mountain Rat. Wherever found, his habits are much the same and make him one of the most interesting of all the little people who wear fur.

      “Next to Jerry Muskrat he is the largest native Rat, that is, of the Rats which belong in this country. He is about two thirds as big as Robber the Brown Rat, but though he is of the same general shape, so that you would know at once that he is related to Robber, he is in all other ways wholly unlike that outcast. His fur is thick and soft, almost as soft as that of a Squirrel. His fairly long tail is covered with hair. Indeed, some members of his branch of the family have tails almost as bushy as a Squirrel's. His coat is soft gray and a yellowish-brown above, and underneath pure white or light buff. His feet are white. He has rounded ears and big black eyes with none of the ugliness in them that you always see in the eyes of Robber. And he has long whiskers and plenty of them.”

      TRADER THE WOOD RAT. This is the Eastern form of this interesting branch of the Rat family.

      “But СКАЧАТЬ