Perhaps the human race would despise us less proudly, and persecute us less severely,-- perhaps even boys would take less pleasure in torturing, worrying, and hunting us down,-- if our characters and instincts were better known. Who can say that some truth may not be learned, some lesson of kindliness gained, even from a narration simple as mine,-- the history of THE RAMBLES OF A RAT. [Decoration] * * * * * Transcriber's note: "The Family of Mus" (Chapter VII): By some classifications, all the animals that appear in this chapter are part of the superfamily _Muroidea_ within the rodent family. German Hamster: _Cricetus cricetus_, the black-bellied hamster. _The European hamster is at least twice the size of the Syrian or golden hamster. Its personality is much as described._ Musk-rat: _Ondatra zibethicus_ Lemming: _Lemmus lemmus_ "... the Musk Cavy, which I have heard of as inhabiting Ceylon and other places in the East" _Possibly the hutia, _Capromys pilorides_, although hutias are indigenous to the West Indies, especially Cuba, not Asia._ Errors and Inconsistencies noted by Transcriber: The inconsistent handling of nested quotes, with single ' or double " quotation marks for the inner quote, is unchanged. Where two closing quotation marks are expected, only one was printed: Ch. V. ... I will not lose sight of you, my friend." Ch. XVII. ... father of the Russian fleet." The word "invisible" means that the letter or punctuation mark is absent, but there is an appropriately sized empty space. Ch. V. He told me that I was about a sin-- a great sin. [_text unchanged: missing words?_] Ch. VIII. "I looked at his meagre form clothed in rags [open " missing] How I should like to build one myself!" [close " missing] [* The Reformatory in Great Smith Street, Westminster.] [. missing] Ch. IX. to nibble at the hard polished crockery, [, invisible] Ch. XVI. With quiet night came our feasting-time, [, invisible] Ch. XVII. had both seen cannon and learnt their use, [. for ,] Ch. XVIII. above one half is shipped from St. Petersburg." [close " missing] the place where such glorious mountains are to be found?" [_text unchanged: ? may be error for !_] Ch. XXI. a hunch of bread and cheese beside it [_spelling unchanged_] Ch. XXII. the farmer's terrible gripe [terribe gripe: _error corrected, archaic form retained_] "'And how do you earn it?' inquired the farmer. [farmer.'] my light-footed comrade and I [invisible hyphen at page-end]