1873 – Mother-Love in a Rat

“Mother-Love in a Rat – by Harrison Weir” is a full page book plate image, taken from the “Chatterbox Album of Animals”, published by W.W.Gardner, circa 1878. The drawing however, is dated earlier, in 1873.  The illustration is accompanied by the following anecdote: “One evening a man set a rat-trap in his kitchen. In the morning he found a full-grown female rat, caught by the fore-legs in the trap. As he came near her, several young rats scampered off, and on looking closer, he saw the poor mangled mother lying upon her side, and suckling two of her young that had not been frightened away. The heart of the rat-catcher was softened, and mother and family were allowed to run off.”

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