THE MAGAZINE 

 NATURAL HISTORY. 



__ — — — 



JANUARY, 1836. 



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^\VlSd^MWTCOMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Notes on the History and Habits of the Brown, or Grey, 

 Rat (Mus decumanus). By Charles Waterton, Esq. 



Some few years after the fatal period of 1688, when our 

 aristocracy, in defence of its ill-gotten goods, took upon itself 

 to dispose of hereditary monarchy in a way which, if attempted 

 nowadays, would cause a considerable rise in the price of 

 hemp, there arrived on the coast of England a ship from 

 Germany, freighted with a cargo of no ordinary importance. 

 In it was a sovereign remedy for all manner of national 

 grievances. Royal expenditure was to be mere moonshine, 

 taxation as light as Camilla's footsteps, and the soul of man 

 was to fly up to heaven its own way. But the poet says, 



^no8 ban wwabifl. ■, dlC1( l" e beat " S , , „ 



Ante obitum nemo, supremaque itinera debet ; 



that is, we must not expect supreme happiness on our side of 

 the grave. As a counterpoise to the promised felicity to be 

 derived from this superexcellent German cargo, there was 

 introduced, either by accident or by design, an article destined 

 at no far distant period to put the sons of Mr. Bull in mind 

 of the verses which* I have just quoted. 



This was no other than a little grey-coloured short-legged 

 animal, too insignificant, at the time that the cargo was landed, 

 to attract the slightest notice. It is known to naturalists some- 

 times by the name of the Norwegian, sometimes by that of 

 the Hanoverian, rat. Though I am not aware that there are 

 any minutes, in the zoological archives of this country, which 

 point out to us the precise time at which this insatiate and 

 mischievous little brute first appeared among us ; still, there 

 is a tradition current in this part of the country, that it ac- 

 tually came over in the same ship which conveyed the new 



Vol. IX. — No. 57. b 



