It was a magnificent spectacle, and
although witnessed so often it always greatly excited me.
One day my father went to the _galpon_, the big barn-like building
used for storing wood, hides, and horse-hair, and seeing him go up the
ladder I climbed up after him. It was an immense vacant place
containing nothing but a number of empty cases on one side of the
floor and empty flour-barrels, standing upright, on the other. My
father began walking about among the cases, and by and by called me to
look at a young pigeon, apparently just killed, which he had found in
one of the empty boxes. Now, how came it to be there? he asked. Rats,
no doubt, but how strange and almost incredible it seemed that a rat,
however big, had been able to scale the pigeon-house, kill a pigeon
and drag it back a distance of twenty-five yards, then mount with it
to the loft, and after all that labour to leave it uneaten! The wonder
grew when he began to find more young pigeons, all young birds almost
of an age to have left the nest, and only one or two out of half a
dozen with any flesh eaten.
Here was an enemy to the dovecote who went about at night and did his
killing quietly, unseen by any one, and was ten times more destructive
than the falcon, who killed her adult old pigeon daily in sight of all
the world and in a magnificent way!
I left him pondering over the mystery, gradually working himself up
into a rage against rats, and went off to explore among the empty
barrels standing upright on the other side of the loft.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226