BHP BEACK OR SHIP RAT 587 
Patterson (Zoologist, and Weld Life on a Norfolk Estuary) reported 
that the rats were still apparently increasing in numbers and 
occupying fresh haunts; and he wrote that they were still abundant 
in 1910. Specimens taken by Patterson were sent by Southwell to 
Barrett-Hamilton from Yarmouth in 1896. 
If the Brown Rat has displaced the Black Rat from a large part of 
Europe, the latter species is still unrivalled in the role of a mariner. 
As such it frequently makes a reappearance in ports and along coasts 
whence it has, as a landsman, long since vanished. Sometimes it 
comes ashore from wrecks. Thus T. Cornish (Zoologist, 1878, 388) 
notes that after the wreck of an Italian grain-ship, the Aspagvo/, in 
Acton Cove, Marazion, Cornwall, “the whole of the surrounding 
district was swarming with these little rats.” The “English Black 
Rat” is also mentioned as “although rare in this district, not extinct,” 
and Cornish recorded its occurrence in Cornwall in 1889 (Zoologzst, 
1889, 434 and 450). Again, a “breed” of black rats swam ashore at 
Seascale from the wreck of a foreign fruit-vessel in 1866, and became 
temporarily established (T. Lindsay, in Lakeland, 81); and another 
important description of a landing (on Man) of these foreign rats is 
given by Millais (ii., 213). A constant interchange of rats takes place 
between vessels lying in port and the land, but owing to the relatively 
small numbers of rats involved, such movements naturally attract 
attention less frequently. When at Marseru, Basutoland, about 1904, 
Mr Wroughton saw three specimens of 4. 7. rattus which came out 
alive from packing-cases imported by the hospital; these packages had 
come by sea from Europe to East London, and thence by rail, followed 
by over a month’s trek. 
Distribution and status :—Z. ra¢ius is naturally distributed through- 
out southern Asia. Semi-parasitic races (E. 7. frugivorus and r. alexan- 
drinus), retaining the wild coloration, have spread thence by way of 
Asia Minor and Arabia throughout Africa north of the Sahara and 
throughout the south of Europe. These on colonising temperate 
Europe have become completely parasitic, and have developed as a 
peculiar dusky race or sub-species, Z. 7. vattus. These parasitic races 
have been subsequently dispersed artificially though unwittingly 
throughout the world. 
Within the last two centuries competition with the much larger and 
heavier Brown Rat (4. xorvegicus) has almost completely eliminated 
the present species from the temperate countries of Europe, and from 
much of North America; here and there, however, in these regions 
colonies still manage to survive. In warmer countries more suited to 
its organisation, and where consequently it is not condemned to a 
purely parasitic existence, this species is well able to maintain its 
ground and is still the “common rat.” At sea its lightness and superior 
