A surgeon's mate on board a ship relates that while he was lying awake one evening, he saw a rat come into his berth, and after looking carefully about the place, go away with the greatest care and silence. Soon after it returned, leading by the ear another rat, which it left at a small distance from the hole by which they had entered. A third rat joined this kind conductor; they then foraged about, and picked up all the small scraps of biscuit; these they carried to the second rat, which seemed blind, and staid right on the spot where they had left it, nibbling such food as its faithful friends, whom the story-teller thinks were its children, brought to it from the more remote parts of the room.