MAMMALS OF BERMUDA. 157 



of a vessel containing such animals upon its shores; and in the case of 

 the Bermudas, which are known to have been the last resting place of 

 many a craft long before they came into the possession of the English, 

 there can be no doubt as to the means by which they obtained a footing 

 upon those isles, so far distant from the nearest land. 



As the Xorway Kat, which it appears belonged originally to the 

 warmer regions of Central Asia, was introduced into the western coun- 

 tries of Europe so late as the middle of the eighteenth century,* it 

 clearly could not have been the species that overrun the Bermudas, ac- 

 cording to Smith, more than a century before.t Most probably it came 

 to the islands in some" of the vessels sent out by the Bermuda Company 

 from England laden with stores for the colonists, about the end of the 

 eighteenth century. 



In some of the older houses, especially near the sea, this rat is very 

 troublesome, consuming almost every article it can find, even to the 

 bedclothes of the occupants as they lie asleep, and instances are 

 recorded where children have been seriously bitten during repose at 

 night. This rat is also common in the marshes, where it swims and 

 dives with facility. The old and full-grown specimens are called 

 ^'beagles" by the islanders. 



MUS RATTUS, L. 



^^Blach Rat." 



Mu8 rattua, Lin. Syst. Nat. I, 1766.— De Kay, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842^ 79.— Aud. and Bach. 



N. Amer. Quad. I, 1849, 189, pi. xxiii.— Giebel, Saught. 1855, 555. 

 Mu8 americanus, De Kay, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842, 81, pi. xxi, f. 2. 

 Mus nigricans, Raf. Am. Month. Mag. Ill, 1818, 446. 



This species, which w^as once so abundant all over Europe and North 



America, and i)robably equally so before the introduction of the common 



house-rat into the Bermudas, is now so scarce that it may be almost 



said to be extinct. 



Mus TECTORUM, Savi. 



"Tree Rat" 



Mus tectoruvi, Savi. "Nuovi Giornale di Lett. 1825." — Bonaparte, Fauna Italica, 

 plate.— Keys & Blasius, Europ. Wirb. 1842, 36. — Wagner, Suppl. Schreb. Ill, 

 1843, 405. — Burmeister, TMere Brasiliens, I, 1854, 154. — Giebel, Zoologie, 1855, 

 555. 



Mus alexandrimis, "Geoflfr. Desc. de I'Egypte." 



Mus flaviventris, "Licht. Brants Miuzen, 108." 



* Baird, Mammals of North America, p. 439. 

 t Smith, History of Virginia, p. 137. 



