216 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Epimys rattus (Linne). 

 Mus rattus Linne, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 175S, 1, p. 61. 



Epimys rattus alexandrinus (Geoffroy). 



Mus alexandrinus Geoffroy, Descript. de l'Egypte, Mamra., 1818, 

 p. 733. 



These rats were very early introduced into the West India islands, 

 and have become generally distributed among them. Apparently 

 they increased enormously at first, and became a serious menace 

 to the growing of certain crops, as the sugar cane. It was with the 

 hope of exterminating them that the mongoose was first brought to 

 Jamaica. Already, in 1654, Du Tertre makes mention of the great 

 abundance and voracity of the rats among the French islands. He 

 says that they destroy all sorts of fruits and green plants, especially 

 sugar-cane. Hughes (1750) says that in Barbados they "are so very 

 numerous, and so very destructive to Sugar-canes, that the yearly 

 Loss to the Inhabitants of the Parishes of St. Joseph's and St. Andrew's 

 alone, is computed to be no less than Two or Three Thousand Pounds." 



At the present time, although still abundant on the islands, they 

 appear, on some at least, to have reached a sort of adjustment as 

 one of the faunal elements, and are not so noticeably destructive. 

 This, at all events, appears to be the case in Grenada, where they are 

 everywhere found, even in the primeval forest about Grand Etang, 

 in the interior of the island. No reports of damage from rats were 

 brought to notice, and no signs of destruction to the cocoa or fruits 

 were seen. It may well be that the mongoose serves to check their 

 increase, though it can hardly exterminate them. In Grenada we 

 once started a rat from a heap of dried leaves in a cocoa orchard, 

 It at once ran up a tree, and passing from limb to limb, quickly evaded 

 our pursuit. 



A few specimens of M. alexandrinus were taken in San Domingo by 

 A. H. Verrill in 1906. In Cuba, Gundlach (1866-7, p. 55) thought it 

 less common than the black rat, and speaks of its making round nests 

 in trees. Browne, in his History of Jamaica (1789, p. 484) speaks of 

 the "cane rat" as so destructive in the sugar fields that it often 

 destroys one fourth or more of the crop. He adds, " There are great 

 numbers of them in every plantation, though they take great pains 

 to get rid of them; for the watchmen have seldom anything else to do 



