ANIMAL MAGIC (7)

An unpopular chap, the rat, unless he's of the fancy variety bred in captivity and kept as a pet.
Your average rat is a bit of an outlaw, constantly living on his wits and a figure of distaste for many.
The rat's had plenty of bad publicity: a James Herbert novel that demonized him, a grotesque cameo in American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and of course that terrifying scene in George Orwell's 1984, so we're bound to be prejudiced against him.
Nature's order, however, is always subject to change so here's some cautionary advice.

THE RAT

The jolly rat, though he be mild,
is universally reviled.
Indeed, he is a clever chap,
evading every baited trap
to gorge, content, on bread or seed
put out for chaffinches to feed
or nuts from cages hung for tits:
from these, he often purloins bits.
He is, undoubtedly, a pest:
of quadrupeds, far from the best,
but let’s be friendly to the rat
for one day, when our world goes splat
and we are foraging for scraps,
he may be out there baiting traps.