Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 151, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1914 — Cat Mothered Young Rat Along With Five Kittens. [ARTICLE]

Cat Mothered Young Rat Along With Five Kittens.

Jud Adams was in from Barkley township a few days ago with a nature story that Is hard to beat A mother cot at his farm hod a family of five kittens. One morning when he went to look at them he found a stranger in the family. It was a young rat and It lay right in with the legitimate family of the Mine. He earried the rat away lor some distance and laid it dawn. The mother oat went after it and carried it back just as she would have carried any one of the kittens and deposited It in the nest with her family. Interested in the outcome of the case Mr. Adams again carried the rat away and again the mother went alter it. The rat was much smaller than /the kittens and still had its eyes closed. Finally it died, presumably because it /was unable to nurse the,mother, as it was rooted away by the kittens. Jud is unable to determine whether the mother cat could not tell the rat" from her family of kittens or was provident enough to undertake to raise the rat up to >lOll size in order to provide a Sunday dinner for her childaen later on.