Mus. 323 
No. 333. Mus pDECcUMANUS. 
The Brown Rat ( Jerdon’s No. 176). 
NatTivE Names.—Ghur-ka-chuha, Hindi; Demsa-indur, Bengali ; 
Manei-ilei, Canarese ; Gaval-meeyo, Singhalese. 
Hasitst.—Throughout India, Ceylon, and in some parts of Burmah. 
DESCRIPTION.—Fur greyish-brown, mixed with tawny above, with 
longer piles of a dark colour, almost black ; ears round ; tail generally 
longer than head and body, scaly, with short bristles at the margins of 
the rings. 
S1zeE.—Head and body, from 8 to ro inches ; tail, from 6 to 11 inches. 
The brown rat of India is identical with that of Europe, most 
naturalists being now agreed that it originally came from the East. It 
was supposed by Pallas that the brown rat crossed over into Russia 
about the year 1727. When frightened by an earthquake, numbers 
swam over the Volga from countries bordering on the Caspian Sea. 
It seems to have driven out the black rat before it wherever it made 
its appearance. In England it was introduced by shipping about the 
middle of the last century, and has since then increased to such an 
extent as to swarm over the whole country, and render the old English 
black rat a comparatively rare animal. From its ferocity and fecundity 
the brown rat is a veritable pest; if it cannot beat a retreat from an 
enemy it will show most determined fight, and in large numbers will 
attack and kill even men. A story is related by Robert Stephenson, 
the great engineer, that in a coal-pit in which many horses were 
employed, the rats, allured by the grain, had gathered in large numbers. 
On the pit being closed for a short time, and the horses being brought 
up, the first man who descended on the re-opening of the work was 
killed, and devoured by the starving rats. Similar stories have been 
told of men in the sewers of Paris. In the horse slaughterhouses at 
Montfaucon in Paris, the rats swarm in such incredible numbers that 
the carcases of horses killed during the day would be picked clean to 
the bone during the night; sometimes upwards of thirty horses would 
be so devoured. This shows the carnivorous tendencies of these 
abominable pests. I confess to a general love for all animals, but I 
draw the line at rats. There is something repulsive about one of these 
creatures, and a wicked look about his large protruding eye, like a black 
glistening bead, and his ways are not pleasant; instead of keeping, as 
he ought, to sweet grain and pleasant roots, he grubs about for all the 
carrion and animal matter he can get. 
find there‘is no bait so enticing to the brown rat as a piece of 
chicken or meat of any kind. I have heard stories of their attacking 
children, and evefi grown-up people when asleep, but I cannot vouch 
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