SPECIES OF RAT IN ENGLAND. 105 



of which some very touching narratives are in print; but the 

 history of the transportation and diffusion of one, and the conquest 

 and destruction of another race of rats, forms a short chapter in 

 animal geography, which may have interest enough to detain us 

 a few moments, if it were merely to trace a certain occasional 

 resemblance that exists between the movements, respectively, of 

 rats and men. 



I am not aware of any record of the existence of rats in our 

 island, during the early historical periods ; but it appears that the 

 hlacJc rai was first noticed, during the middle ages, on the Continent 

 of Europe, to which it had penetrated from some unknown region, 

 conjectured to be America. Milne Edwards says it was not known 

 to the ancients. Gesner, of Zurich, in his Historia Animaliumf 

 1558, is the first modern author who describes and figures it. It 

 is highly probable that it came over to England, from the Continent 

 of Europe; and this opinion is strengthened by the information 

 given by Mr. T. Bell, in his " British Quadriqyeds,'' viz., that the 

 name for the black rat, in Welsh, means French mouse. 



About the year 1730, according to Pennant, when the black 

 rat held undisputed possession of our drains, cellars, house and 

 barn walls, stables, &c., there was brought, by ship, from India, a 

 new species, larger, more powerful, and bolder than the old, and 

 as soon as the strangers had gained a firm footing in the island, 

 they began to war upon the natives, and as, in the case of man, 

 the more vigorous race gradually overpowers the weaker, so in 

 that of the rat, the stronger gradually overran the whole island ; 

 and now, after the lapse of 120 years, has not only long since 

 completed the conquest of its predecessor, but has nearly extirpated 

 it from the country. 



The new species thus established is the brown, or Norway rat. 

 Why this latter name was given to it does not appear; for it was 

 so called before it really existed in the Scandinavian peninsula. 



Of the two great parties of rats, contending for supremacy in 

 England, during the last century, the black was called the Jacobite, 

 the brown the Hanoverian, in obvious historic allusion. 



It is not on record, that I can find, from what part of India 

 the brown rat was brought hither; but in twenty years after its 



VOL. I. PT. I. 



