"Inquiry having been made respecting a letter sent to a person residing at Kirkcudbright, it appeared that it had been duly delivered, but that the addressee having left the letter on a table during the night, it had been devoured by rats." Another case of the depredation of rats upon letters is as follows:—
Certain letters which ought to have reached a bookseller in a country town not having been received, it was concluded, after inquiry, that they had been duly delivered, but had subsequently been withdrawn from under the street door, which was furnished with a slit to receive letters, but without a box to retain them. During subsequent alterations in the shop, however, when it was necessary to remove the flooring under the window, the discovery was made of thirty-one letters, six post-cards, and three newspapers which had been carried thither by rats! The corners of the letters, &c., bearing the stamps, were nibbled away, leaving no doubt that the gum upon the labels was the inducement to the theft. Several of the letters contained cheques and money-orders.
But rats are old enemies to letters, as is known in the Post-office; for in the olden times, when sailing-ships were in use as mail-packets, sad complaints were made of the havoc caused by "ratts" to the mails conveyed in these ships.
Nor are rats the only dumb creatures which have shown a "literary" turn, in getting possession of post-letters. Some years ago a postman was going his rounds delivering letters in Kelvedon, in Essex, carrying a registered letter in his hand ready to deliver it at the next house, when a tame raven—a worthy compeer, if not a contemporary, of the Jackdaw of Rheims—suddenly darted down, snatched it from his grasp, and flew off with it. The bewildered postman could only watch the bird while it made a circuit over the town, which it did before alighting; and so soon as it got to a suitable place, it set to work to analyse the composition of the missive by tearing the letter to pieces. The fragments were shortly afterwards collected and put together, when it was found that part of them were the remains of a cheque for £30, which was afterwards renewed when the singular affair was made known.
Another curious incident in which birds are concerned occurred in the spring of 1884 at Shewbridge Hall, near Nantwich, in Cheshire. For the convenience of the people at the Hall, a letter-box is placed by the gate at the roadside, into which the post-runner drops the correspondence addressed to Shewbridge Hall. Mr Lockett, the occupier of the house, expecting a letter from Liverpool, containing a cheque for £10, went to the box, where, as it happened, he found the letter, but in a mutilated state, and the cheque gone. Believing that a robbery of his box had been committed, or that the letter had been violated before being deposited therein, he forthwith rode into Nantwich to report the matter at the Post-office and to the police. Returning later on, he examined the box more closely, and discovered tomtits inside; and further investigation led to the discovery of the cheque lying twenty yards away on the turnpike road, whither it had evidently been carried for examination. The cheque was folded small, and could therefore be easily carried by these small birds.
Letter-box taken possession of by Tomtits.
The tomtits had taken possession of the box for nesting purposes, and perhaps they found the letter to be in the way, and accordingly made an effort to remove it. In the spring of the previous year a pair of tomtits built their nest in this letter-box (possibly the same pair), and reared a brood of young, though letters were being dropped into the box every day.
A very similar circumstance occurred in the same season at a place near Lockerbie, where a letter-box is affixed to the trunk of a tree bordering on the main road, for the convenience of the people living at Daltonhook farm, which occupies a site some distance from the highway. The letter-box is about fifteen inches square, with the usual slit to admit of letters being dropped in, and a door to the front the full size of the box, to allow the postman to clear it or to place larger packets within. A pair of tomtits, considering the box an eligible place for bringing up a family, built their nest in it, obtaining ingress and egress by the letter-slit, and choosing that portion of the interior farthest from the door for their purpose. In contrast to the ruthlessness and cruelty of many who show no love to God's creatures unless they contribute in some way to their comfort or profit, the post-runner and the family who use the box, in a kind-hearted way took every care to disturb these objects of interest as little as possible, and in due time the nest was complete, and eight tiny eggs were deposited therein. While the female was sitting on the eggs during the term of incubation, she did not rise from the nest when the post-runner opened the door, but would make a peculiar noise and peck at his hand as he put it forward to take out or deposit letters. But after a time the two became more friendly, and kindness on the one side begetting confidence on the other, the bird at length became so familiar, that while it continued to sit on the nest it would peck crumbs from the man's hand, instead of showing displeasure, as it formerly had done. At length seven young birds became the joy of the parents. These, however, did not find the box altogether free from drawbacks; for letters, in being deposited through the slit, sometimes fell on the top of the youngsters, and so excited the wrath of the old birds. This was proved on one occasion when a servant dropped a letter into the box, for when the post-runner next visited the receptacle, he found the letter so mutilated, either through sheer rage on the part of the tomtits, or in their endeavours to eject it by the slit, that he took it back to the farmhouse rather than send it forward in its badly damaged state. However, the brood at length got through the troubles of their infantile days; and we may indulge the hope that they have since lived to join in the antiphonies of the grove, or to adorn the roadside spray with their neat figures and glowing colours.