588 MURIDA—EPIMYS 
skill as a climber give it a great advantage over its adversary, and even 
in temperate latitudes it is still, and is likely to remain, the principal 
“ship rat.” 
Distribution in time, and origin :—J udging from its wild distribution 
and history, this species is of Oriental origin, and the group must be of 
considerable antiquity in the East. The only fossil remains known, 
however, are some of perhaps rather questionable age found in the 
Pleistocene of Europe. Pictet (A7ém. Soc. Phys. et Hist. Nat., 1846, 
xi., 90) described remains, from the gravels of Mattegnin, Geneva, 
apparently not distinguishable from this species. A lower jaw from the 
Pleistocene of Lombardy was described by Cornalia (Wamm. foss. de 
Lombé., 1858, 38), who named it Mus rattus fossilis. To this form 
Woldrich (Sztzd. kats. Akad. Wiss., Wien., math.-nat. Cl., §4, Abt. 1., 250, 
1881; and 88, Abt. 1, 1025, 1883) referred jaws from the fissure 
deposits of Zuzlawitz, Bohemia, and his figures indicate a species similar 
to E. rattus. No fossil remains have been discovered in Britain. If 
present in Europe during the Pleistocene, the species must have died 
out, and it was subsequently reintroduced as described above. Many 
bones were found among the pile-dwellings of Mecklenburg ; these may 
indicate the presence of the species in Germany before the 13th century 
(for references see Brandt-Woldrich, W/ém. Ac. Limp. Sc., St Petersb., 35,67). 
Description :—Z. rattus is smaller, much lighter, and more delicately 
built than the Brown Rat; its tail is usually longer, never noticeably 
shorter, than the head and body. 
The head is slender, with a pointed snout. The naked muzzle-pad 
is small and has a deep median groove, which is continuous with the 
lip-cleft. The eyes are large, but not particularly prominent. The ears 
are of a broad ovate or rounded form; they are of considerable length 
(half that of the head), projecting conspicuously from the fur and 
reaching or covering the eyes when laid forward. Their substance is 
thin and translucent ; the inner and outer surfaces finely papillose and 
thinly clad with short hairs. They are practically destitute of meatal 
valves, the posterior border of the meatus having but a barely indicated 
ridge. The hands and feet are of moderate size, long and narrow, and 
they are provided with. small, simple claws, which are longest in the 
feet ; the dorsal surfaces of the hands and feet are clothed with short 
stiff hairs, but the palms and soles are naked. The skin of each digit 
is folded in scaly, annular corrugations, of which nine or ten are present 
on the lower surface of digit 3 in the hand and foot; on the upper 
surface, where the corrugation is finer and less conspicuous, the grooves 
and ridges are about twice as numerous; the hairs clothing the upper 
surface of the digits rise principally from the grooves between the 
corrugations. In each hand the thumb is reduced to a mere tubercle 
bearing a vestigial nail which does not extend to its edge; digit 5 is 
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