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XXI. Description of a large Species of Rat, a Native of the East 
Indies. By Captain Thomas Hardrvicke, F.L.S. 
Read February % 1804. 
1 peg leave to offer to the notice of the Linnean Society a brief 
description of a large species of rat, a native of the East Indies, 
which is mentioned by the late Mr. Pennant, in his History of 
Quadrupeds, (3d ed.) Volume II, No. 377. It is also noticed by 
Dr. Shaw in his General Zoology, under the name of Mus malaba- 
ricus*', but, as it is the largest of the known species of this genus, 
and is not peculiar to the coast of Malabar, it may, perhaps, 
with more propriety be named 
MUS GIGANTEUS. 
T^b. XVIIL 
The nose is rounded; the under jaw much shorter than the upper: 
cutting teeth broad, incurvated, compressed; the lower ones 
measuring eight-tenths of an inch, and the upper four-tenths 
in length. 
The ears naked, large, ovate, much rounded, erect, with the mar- 
gins a little turned inwards. 
The body is thick, and much arched; the upper part is most hairy 
and black; the lower inclining to gray. 
* Mus griseus, auriculis rotundatis nudis, digitis plantarum exterioribus brevioribus. 
Shaw's Zool. Vol. ii. Part i. p. 54. 
The 
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