The Companies of Rats
Many animals snuggle together for warmth in bitter weather—as the squirrels and the rats. Those who go ratting in hedges and dells in the winter know they may try a dozen freshly used burrows without finding a rat—when suddenly from a single hole the rats will come pouring out in a stream of fur. Twenty or more rats will lie together in one hole. They are clever enough to block up a hole on the windward side to keep out the draught—so that a rat-hole newly stopped with soil, turnip leaves, or grass, is almost certain indication that rats are within. They store food for winter, and the keeper may find it more difficult to secure his potatoes from frost than from the attack of the most numerous of his furred foes.
