THE KODENTS. 71 



3. THE RATS, MICE, AND VOLES. 



The Black Rat is frequently spoken of as the "British" 

 rat, implying that it occurred in these islands from the 

 Black Bat earliest times. Such, however, is far from 

 or Batton. the truth, as thi^ species was undoubtedly, as 

 geologists are able to tell us, of comparatively late intro- 

 duction. It would appear to have come, like its more 

 Introduction powerful antagonist, from the East, travelling 

 into these vid the Continent, the period of its arrival 

 islands. j n these islands being in all probability about 



the end of the fourteenth century. Its stay has been 

 short, indeed, for within little more than five hundred 

 years of the date commonly assigned for its introduction 

 it was already becoming scarce, disappearing before the 

 superior strength of its brown relative. Now- 

 adays, it only lingers in a comparatively few 

 towns, and, so at least it is said, in some 

 London cellars in the neighbourhood of St Paul's, where 

 one was taken, I believe, as recently as 1895. It is also 

 said to hold its own in Sark and others of the Channel 

 Islands; Stockton-on-Tees is, according to Roebuck, one 

 of its last strongholds in Yorkshire; and Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell has caught it in Galloway farmyards. 



Though associated, like all vermin, in the popular mind 



with all that is dirty and offensive, few animals 



are of cleanlier habits, for, like other rats, the 



present species is always combing its fur and keeping itself 



sweet. 



The black rat is prolific like the rest of its family, the 



female producing during the year an aggregate of from 



thirty to fifty young, each litter numbering 



mg> seven or eight. The roomy nest of leaves and 



debris is used as the nursery of successive families, the first 



of which are themselves parents ere their younger brothers 



of the same year have seen the light. 



