580 MURIDAZ—EPIMYS 
the sixteenth century only, and they cite Gesner as the first describer. 
Others suppose that the Black Rat arrived in Europe in the Middle 
Ages, and they rely on Albertus Magnus, who wrote in the middle of 
the thirteenth century, “ Est autem magnum quod nos ratum vocamus : 
et est in arboribus habitans, fuscum nigris in facie maculis (De Animalibus, 
lib. xxii, 182); but this passage, as pointed out by de I’[sle, is a 
description of EZomys, and may be cited as a proof that rats were 
unknown at Cologne, Germany, when it was written. They were 
certainly known in France in the early thirteenth century, since they 
are clearly indicated in the well-known ballads of Reynard (Roman du 
Renart, early thirteenth century; Renzart le nouvel, late thirteenth 
century; and Revart le contrefazt, early fourteenth century). Beyond 
the evidence of the legendary Pzed Pzper of Hameln, no such early 
German record is known (but see under Dzstrzbution in Time, p. 588). 
In England rats were considered nuisances in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries (Rogers, i, 33). They were caught at Weston in 
1297, and in Oxford on two occasions, in 1335 and 1363: in the former 
case a farthing apiece was paid for them, a circumstance which caused 
Rogers to think that, in the general practice that prevailed of using fur 
of all kinds, rat skins had a market value (of. czz., 282). Arsenic asa 
poison was known (of. czz¢., 33), and Chaucer has (in the Pardonere’s 
Tale): “And forth he goth, no lenger wold he tary, Into the toun 
unto a Potecary, And praied him that he him wolde sell Som poison, 
that he might his ratouns quell.” A femur was obtained from the 
midden of Rayleigh Castle, Essex, a stronghold occupied from the end 
of the eleventh to the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the 
whitish colour of the bone suggested that the specimen might be “ some- 
what more recent than most of the remains from the midden.” 
The bones of “rats” found by J. P. Bartlett in Romano-British 
tumuli were in all probability remains of the Water Rat. References to 
rats occur in the Master of Game (218) and in Turberville (1575, 147), 
where they or mice are spoken of as food for falcons. Elizabeth’s Acte 
for frservacon of Grayne set a price of one penny “for the heades of 
everie three Rattes or twelve myse.” 
In Ireland the Black-Rat was probably numerous and well known 
from at least the twelfth century, for we have Giraldus Cambrensis’s 
statement? (Zopographia Hibernica, 1183-1186): Est et aliud bi (Ze. 
! According to this legend Hameln suffered a terrible plague of rats in 1259 or 
1284. The piper attracted the rats with his music, and led them to destruction in 
the Weser. The citizens cheated him of his reward ; whereupon the piper re-entered 
the city on 26th June, played another tune, and drew all the children, save a lame 
one, after him into the interior of the low hill called the Koppenberg. The records 
of the town were long dated from the latter tragic event. 
2 Hinton, Essex Naturalist, xvii., 17, 1912. 
3 See Millais, il., 209, for other references to rats by Giraldus in Ireland and Wales. 
