RODENTIA MUR1NAE MUS RATTUS. 



439 



The brown rat is well known over the world for its destructive propensities and the injury it 

 causes to house and store. According to Pallas, it belonged originally to the warmer regions of 

 Central Asia, Persia especially. Thence it crossed the Volga, in large troops, in 1737, peopled 

 Kussia, and subsequently overspread the whole of Europe. According to Erxleben, it reached 

 England in 1730, and France in 1750. In 1775 it was taken to North America, some time 

 subsequent to the black rat, which it soon drove out and nearly exterminated. At the present 

 time no portion of the globe seems free from its pernicious presence, although, as it is usually 

 transported in ships, its first foothold is on and near the seacoast. In 1851, Audubon and Bach- 

 man spoke of it as not found on our Pacific coast. At the present time, however, it is very 

 abundant there as far north as the Columbia river. 



List of specimens. 



1 Collected by Dr. Geo. Suckley, U. S. A. 



MUS B ATT US, L. 



Black Rat. 



Mus rattw, LINNAEUS, Syst. Nat. I, 1766. 



DBKAY, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842, 79. 



AUD. and BACH. N. Am. Quad. I, 1849, 189 ; pi. xxiii. 



GIEBEL, Saugt. 1855, 555. 



Mus americanm, DEKAY, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842, 81 ; pi. xxi, f. 1. 

 Mus niyricams, Raf. Am. Month. Mag. Ill, 1818, 446. 



Sr. Oil. Tail about as long, or a little longer, than the head and body. Above, sooty black, passing insensibly into 

 dark plumbeous on the belly ; sometimes a little paler. Feet brown ; fur of the back without the longer coarse bristles of 

 the brown rat. 



This species may be readily distinguished from the common brown rat by the much darker 

 colors. In a specimen from Montreal, the upper parts are of a lustrous sooty black, with a green 



