{Welcome to our feast. Pencil drawing, Elaine Haby.}
After a long hiatus, we bring you a colony of rats.
Rats do not often squeak as they do in films and animated tales. They rarely make a noise we humans can hear. Those ratty noises we can hear are made only when frightened or in peril, never as a means of simple conversation with their rat brothers and sisters. Their language is chiefly inaudible to us, save for a chatter or happy grinding of teeth. They live in our midst, always close by, and they are protected by their shyness of humans. It is this shyness that enables them to live so very close to the great many who consider them little more than disease-carrying vermin.
{Rats (Edo period (1770-1820), Japan, a netsuke made of ivory). Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}
Rats are clever. They are ingenious at adapting to their environment ever in a state of flux, and this is perhaps why we three love them so. Shining eyes and well-groomed whiskers, nimble and swift, this, it must be said, helps too.
(A colony of rats can also be referred to as a horde, a mischief, or a swarm.)
LOOKING (THROUGH LANTERN SLIDE) FOR OUR RAT BROTHERS & SISTERS.
{Egypt: Roman Fort, Ibrim. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
{Egypt: Arabian Horse and Sais, Cairo. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
{Paris Exposition: Chemistry and Machinery, Paris, France, 1900. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
{Paris Exposition: Commercial Navigation Building, United States Section, Paris, France, 1900. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
{Paris Exposition: Luminous Palace, Paris, France, 1900. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
{Paris Exposition: United States Pavilion, Paris, France, 1900. Paris Exposition. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
FOUND, OUR RAT BROTHERS & SISTERS.
{Paris Exposition: Salle des Fetes, Paris, France, 1900. Collage, Gracia Haby.}
Thank-you for all your interest in regard to this blog and for bearing with the sporadic nature of posting.
