the park, which he soon does, but Plucky is forced to remain behind until he can find a way to escape. After biding their time in the sewers, the rats return to the park over many nights and soon grow in huge numbers, but their caution means that the true scale of their invasion does not become apparent to the other animals for some time. When the animals become aware of the rats' renewed presence in the Hollow, they launch an attack on them and drive them out of their corner of the reserve. However, several more rats gather at the pond and attack the frogs, but Toad voices his protest and the rats attack him too. The rats' leader, Bully, warns Toad that they will soon take over the whole reserve. As the white deer arrive to drink at the pond, Bully attacks Toad with his teeth and retreats. Whistler arrives at the pond and discovers the badly wounded Toad, who asks the heron to carry him to the Hollow. Whistler does so, but Toad dies soon afterwards. The animals form another hunting party and continue to attack the rats to drive them away from the Hollow, but more rats keep on coming and they appear to be fighting a losing battle. Meanwhile, Plucky comes up with a plan to escape from the other reserve. After the Warden finishes one of his checks of the reserve, Plucky jumps into the back of his Land Rover and is taken out through the gates, before jumping out and setting off for his home reserve, where he is reunited with the other animals. The rats continue to overrun the reserve despite the efforts of Adder and Sinuous to kill as many as they can. As the snakes launch an attack, Bully and several of his followers await them and grab hold of Adder as he enters the nest. Sinuous escapes and tells Plucky, who quickly goes to Adder's rescue. He arrives at the nest and negotiates Adder's freedom by promising not to dig into the rats' nest and attack them. Bully then offers Plucky a truce so that all the animals can concentrate on raising their young instead of battling, and makes a plan to attack the animals while their guard is down. Fox comes up with a plan to alert the Warden of the rats' presence in the park and the