322 MamMatiA OF INDIA. 
skull elongate, narrow; temporal ridges nearly parallel; palate com- 
pressed ; incisive foramina long; auditory bullae moderately large ; 
coronoid process high, falcate; incisors rarely grooved; molars with 
transverse ridges, each composed in youth of three tubercles” (A/s¢on). 
No. 332. MUS RATTUS. 
The Black Rat ( Jerdon’s No. 175). 
NativE Names.— Kala-mus, Kala-chuha, Hindi; Kala-meeyo; 
Singhalese. 
Haxsitat.—Chiefly Europe, but is said to be of south Asian origin ; 
it is stated to occur in towns near the sea-coast in India, and Kellaart 
obtained it in Trincomalee only. 
DEscCRIPTION.—Greyish-black above, dark ashy beneath, or, as 
Kellaart describes it, ‘‘ above 
blackish - brown, along the 
dorsal line nearly black ; sides 
paler, some of the hairs with 
pale fulvous tips ; beneath and 
inside of limbs fur very short, 
of a uniform sooty ash colour, 
separated from the colour 
above by a distinct line of 
demarcation, ears _ large, 
rounded, slightly fulvous ex- 
ternally” (‘ Prodromus Faunze 
Zeylanice,’ p. 58). 
S1zrE.— Head and body 
about 6% to 74 inches; tail, 
7% to 8 inches. 
Jerdon says of this rat 
that the muzzle is sharper 
than that of the brown rat; 
the ears are more oval; it is lighter in its make, and has much longer 
hair. 
Whether this rat be, as Jerdon seems to suspect, imported into India 
in ships or not, it is generally supposed to have had its origin in 
southern Asia, and is almost identical with the Egyptian rat (JZ 
Alexandrinus). It was the common rat of England, and indeed of 
northern Europe, whence it was expelled by its formidable rival, the 
brown rat, before which it has gradually receded, and it is seldom 
found now in England. 
