Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 588
Rat Catchers
Hello Everyone
Have you ever seen a rat?
Maybe you have seen one running across a station platform or even in your own garden?
Rats are attracted to food left around and are considered by most to be a health hazard. They can bite, and they can carry disease. Other people like to keep them as pets in clean conditions, some even exhibit them in competitions. These rats have been specially bred since the late 1800s. You might even have a pet rat at school.
There are different species of rat; they don’t all look the same. There are 56 known species. Mice are relatives of the rat but smaller, rats are bigger and have longer noses and tails. The best-known species are the black rat and the brown rat. You would have heard of the black rat before, if you have read about the Black Death in Europe.
Males are called bucks, females are called does or dams; babies are called kittens or pups.
Rats are good survivors; they can climb well, they can breed quickly and they can scavenge a huge range of food – even poo and leather if there is nothing else available.
They have been spread around the world on ships, and when introduced into new places predated many species or ate their eggs – some species, especially birds and reptiles, were driven into extinction because of them.
They could eat into people’s food stocks, which was not good when food was limited.
Rats have been found to be very intelligent and are quite easy to train. They find their way around well and can even swim along sewer pipes to get into houses or squeeze through small gaps.
They have a good sense of smell and have even been used by people to sniff out substances a bit like little sniffer dogs. They have been used to detect weapons and disease.
But most people, on seeing a rat on their premises, will call an exterminator.
Nowadays, chemicals are set down in traps to get rid or rodents. Cats are a more environmentally-friendly way to get rid of rats than putting down poison; but not all cats are capable of becoming good ratters or even mousers.
Exterminators have been around for centuries, but in the past they were called rat catchers.
You might know the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin?
Pied mean multi-coloured by the way. The piper in the story wore clothes of many colours.
The character comes from a legend from the town of Hamelin in Germany dating back to mediaeval times; an era when people lived in mortal fear of the plague – which could be spread by rats.
ln 1284, a man appeared in town and declared himself to be an expert rat catcher by way of using his magic pipe.
He was consequently hired by the mayor to rid the town of a rat infestation.
The rat catcher lured all the rats out of their hiding places with his music and led them to the nearby Weser River where they drowned.
But the mayor refused to pay the piper, and even said that the piper had brought the rats to the town himself in order to extort (take) money from the people there.
When the promised payment was not forthcoming, the piper was furious, and decided to punish the people of the town by luring away their children as well.
He left town vowing to take his revenge.
He chose to return on a holy day when he knew that all the adults would be in church.
He was dressed all in green like a hunter.
While the adults were out of the way, he started to play his music again in order to this time attract all the children of the town to him.
They followed him in a procession, entranced by the music from his pipes.
One hundred and thirty children marched out of town, followed him into a cave and were never seen again.
Scary!
Or they were drowned in the river like the rats, or taken to a beautiful new land or returned once a ransom of many times the original fee in gold had been paid – depending on which version of the story you read/believe/prefer.
Three children were unable to follow the others and were left behind to tell the adults what had occurred.
The street in Hamlin where the children were last seen, it is believed, is called Bungelosenstrasse, which means street without drums. And even today music and dancing are banned in this street – just in case!
Was this story real or a fairy tale built on a real event of people just fleeing the plague – or dying from it in large numbers?
The story does put the town on the tourist map.
Another famous rat catcher, from a later time, was Jack Black.
He lived in Battersea just south of the river in London in the mid 1800s, and was said to be at the time the most skilled rat catcher and mole exterminator in the whole of London.
Later, he turned his hand to breeding rats to turn them into pets. He did this by keeping unusually-coloured rats that he caught so that he could breed them to create new colour varieties.
Keeping pet rats in decorative cages was to become a new craze with Victorian ladies – even the queen was said to have a few of these fancy rats.
Jack also bred dogs to sell all over London.
He wore a striking, self-styled uniform comprising a green coat, red waistcoat, white, leather breeches. On top of these he wore a sash decorated with metal, rat-shaped badges which he told everyone had been presented to him by Queen Victoria.
But he had made them himself by secretly melting down his wife’s saucepans!
The successful technique he used to rid his clients’ property of rodents was to employ animals to do the work for him: badgers, racoons and even a monkey. But what worked the best, was sending ferrets out to catch the rats, and then sending dogs after them if they wouldn’t come back when he wanted them to.
ln spite of his skill, he nearly died on several occasions when he contracted infections as a result of rat bites.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: What are you reading there Bob?
Bob: l see in the Rocky Bay Gazette that thieves broke into the Rocky Bay Animal Rescue Centre last night and released all the dogs.
lt says that police have spent a lot of time looking for leads!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
The Pied Piper
is still remembered in Hamelin today
Jack Black
A black rat
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
This week, Bill and Bob wanted to take me into the Rocky Bay woods to have a look in the pond there.
If you trawl through the water with a shrimping net and empty it out into a white plastic box, it will be very easy to see what you have managed to find.
There are all manner of creatures lurking away in pond water, and it was an interesting way to spend an afternoon.
The biggest animal we found were some smooth newts – also called common newts.
They go into ponds to breed during springtime where they are not easy to see and spend the rest of the year feeding on invertebrates in the woods. They hibernated underground among tree roots in the winter. They are semi-aquatic animals.
When they are on land, they use their lungs to breathe, but under water they are able to breathe through their skin for a while, and then they have to come up to the surface to catch a breath.
They have a long-tail shapes like a vertical paddle and webbed feet, and this makes them good swimmers.
They are skilled hunters always on the prowl for insects and pond snails which live in the pond with them.
The newts are a dull brown colour with an orange tummy and round, black spots all over. The males and females look the same.
However, the males change during breeding season when they grow a long, wavy crest along the length of their body which also becomes darker.
The female remains a lighter brown and will get busy laying about 300 eggs individually on underwater pond plants.
She will press the leaves of pond plants around each egg with her back feet.
The eggs remain safe inside a leaf cocoon where they will be incubated by the warmth of the sun penetrating the water.
So if you see one some time, you will know all about them, won’t you?
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Quick Quiz
Can you complete these sayings?
They all relate to people causing trouble, or setting people against each other, or cheating people.
- to throw someone to the w _ _ _ _ s
- to stir up a h _ _ _ _ _ s’ nest
- to poke the b _ _ r
- to stir the p _ _
- to put a spoke in the w _ _ _ l
- to light the blue t _ _ _ h p _ _ _ r
- to r _ _ on someone
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A RAT MASK
You will need to cut a section off an egg carton and then cut the bottom of the cups off to make eye holes.
The pointed divider section inside will become a sharp pointed nose.
You may need to paint your mask.
Put some elastic through the sides of the mask so that you can keep it on your head.
Decorate with felt ears, if you want to.
If you have a large box, there will be enough material left to make more masks.
You could also make some masks of birds or animals with pointed noses.
Use your imagination.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- to throw someone to the wolves – to abandon someone to a bad situation/ to deliberately put someone in danger or push them towards people who will hurt them
- to stir up a hornets’ nest – to make trouble
- to poke the bear – to wake him up when he is asleep which will not please him
- to stir the pot – to stir up trouble
- to put a spoke in the wheel – ruin the smooth running of something
- to light the blue touch paper – a way to start an explosion/firework
- to rat on someone – to give information that gets someone into trouble
