23S MAMMALIA-RAT. 



It has a reddish skin, a long tail, the backbone arched like that of the 

 squirrel, the body much thicker, and whiskers like those of a cat. It is 

 about nine inches long, and has a tail of the same length as the body, 

 covered with minute dusky scales, thickly interspersed with short hairs. It 

 is considerably within half a century, since that species has been spread in 

 the neighborhood of Paris. They multiply, indeed, prodigiously ; since it is 

 well known that they generally produce twelve or fifteen, often sixteen, 

 seventeen, eighteen, and even nineteen young ones at a time. The males 

 are larger, stronger, and more mischievous than the females. When any 

 one pursues, and endeavors to take them, they will turn again, and bite the 

 hand or stick which touches them. Their bite is not only sharp but dan- 

 gerous, and is immediately followed by a considerable swelling ; and the 

 wound, though small, is yet long in being closed. They bring forth three 

 times in a year, the dams previously preparing a bed for their young; and 

 thus two individuals of this species produce, at least, three dozen in the 

 space of twelve months. 



THE BLACK RATI 



Is carnivorous, and even, if the expression is allowable, omnivorous. Hard 

 substances, however, it prefers to soft ones ; it devours wool, stuffs, and 

 furniture of all sorts ; eats through Avood, makes hiding-places in walls, 

 thence issues in search of prey, and frequently returns with as much as it 

 is able to drag along with it, forming, especially when it has young ones 

 to provide for, a magazine of the whole. The females bring forth several 

 times in the year, though mostly in the summer season ; and they usually 

 produce five or six at a birth. 



In defiance of the cats, and notwithstanding the poison, the traps, and 

 every other method that is used to destroy these creatures, they multiply so 

 fast as frequently to do cons-iderable damage. On board a man of war they 

 have been known to consume a hundred weight of biscuits daily, and when, 

 to destroy them, the ship has been smoked between decks, six hampers a 

 day have for some time been filled with their carcasses. The Isle of France 

 was once abandoned, on account of their immense swarms; and, even now, 

 they are a severe scourge to it. In old houses, in the country, especially, 

 where great quantities of corn are kept, and where the neighboring barns 

 and hay-stacks favor their retreat, as well as their multiplication, they are 

 often so numerous, that the inhabitants would be obliged to remove with 

 their furniture, were they not to devour each other. This we have often, 

 by experience, found to be the case, when they have been in any degree 

 straitened for provisions ; and the method they take to lessen their num- 



1 Mus rattusj Lin. 



