"They must be young rats," I exclaimed, "and the rare kind, too—the black rat, which has been almost entirely eradicated by the stronger brown species." A curious instance, by the way, of a foreign interloper driving out the native.
I immediately resolved to secure these animals, whatever they might prove to be, and, armed with leather gloves, and an empty glass globe to place my captures in, I began to search in the straw, and soon secured the supposed rats, but they proved to be a pair of water shrews—jet black, lively little creatures, with sharply-pointed snouts and teeth, as I soon discovered to my cost. I had taken off my gloves and was watching the activity of the shrews, when suddenly they flew upon each other, biting and screaming with rage, and thinking they would kill each other at that rate, I tried to separate them, but one turned and bit me pretty severely, and it was with some difficulty they were parted. One I put into a zinc fern case, and the other into a large empty aquarium, with shingle at the bottom, moss and wool for bedding, and a large pan of water for swimming and bathing.
They were rather larger than the common mouse,
