Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1885 — A New Bat-Trap. [ARTICLE]

A New Bat-Trap.

A large number of rats established themselves in a hay-loft, about midway between the floor and the top of the hay. The owner of the premises, hearing a continuous squealing noise in the loft, took a fork and removed the hay from the place whence the noise proceeded, and uncovered a nest of about twenty rats. Several of them ran, but were caught by the dog, hut a bundle of sixteen full-grown animals remained on the spot. Their tails were plaited together, something after the fashion of a whip-cord. By picking up one of them the reat adhered, and cotrld not be shaken apart. It was supposed by persons who saw them that, in order to avoid the cold, the rat occupying the top of the pile sought a warmer place by creeping underneath, but, not having room to draw his tail after him, it was left sticking out. The next rat did the same; and so on until all had changed their position, and every individual rat’s tail was entwined into the curious knot that hDld together. If they had not been discovered and killed they must have starved, as they could not have separated.

I saw a delicate flower had grown up three feet high between the horses’ path and the wheel track. An inch more to the right or left had sealed its fate, or an inch higher; and yet it lived to flourish as much as if it had a thousand acres of untrodden space around it, and never knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow trouble. D. Thoreau.