NORTHERN WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE 69 



The black rat is not so stout as the brown rat and has a longer, 

 more pointed head and larger and broader ears, while the tail is 

 longer than the head and body together. 



The black rat was carried from Europe to South and Middle 

 America about 1554 but the time of its arrival in the North Amer- 

 ican colonies is not definitely known. Apparently it had become well 

 established in the settled districts by the beginning of the eight- 

 eenth century ; but with the appearance of the browai rat the num- 

 bers of the black rat began to decrease, and in mo.st localities it is 

 no longer present. 



In the United States the black rat is still found in some parts 

 of the South ; a few colonies occur in Canada and in some states 

 east of the Mississippi. At some seaports like San Francisco and 

 the immediate coastal islands, it is probable that numbers of this 

 species are introduced in shipping from the far East, but these 

 individuals are usually destroyed before they have much oppor- 

 tunity to reproduce their kind. So far as our neighboring states 

 are concerned the black rat has been recorded from Wisconsin, In- 

 diana, Tennessee, and Kentuckj'. The species was first recorded 

 from Iowa by Professor Herbert Osbom in 1888, and to the record 

 he adds the statement, on the authority of Jordan, "being sup- 

 planted by preceding" [Rattus norvegicus].^ This rat is again re-, 

 corded from the state by the same author in 1891, without com- 

 ment.^" The writer is not familiar with any other records of the 

 occurrence of this form in Iowa, and it is probably no longer found 

 within our borders. 



NORTHERN WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE. WOODLAND DEER 



MOUSE. 



Peromysciis leucopiis nove^horacensis (Fischer). 



YMus sylvaticus] Novehoracensis Fischer, Synopsis Maram., 318, 

 1829. 



Description. — General color above brown, slightly darker along 

 middle of back ; ears dusky, narrowly margined with white ; whis- 

 kers blackish above, white below: tail thickly clothed with hair, 

 brownish above and gradually shading into white below; feet white; 



"Osborn. Herbert, Catalogue of the Mammals of Iowa, Proc. la. Acad. Sci., 

 I, 43, 1888. 



^"Osbom, Herbert, A Partial Catalogue of the Animals of Iowa : Ames, Iowa, 

 5, 1891. 



