915 



MURID^E. 



MURID^E. 



describes one of these nests as beautifully constructed of the panicles 

 and leaves of three stems of the common reed interwoven together, 

 and forming a roundish ball, suspended on the living plants about five 

 inches from the ground. On the side opposite the stems, rather below 

 the middle, was a small aperture, which appeared to be closed during 

 the absence of the parent, and was scarcely observable even after one 

 of the young had made its escape through it. The inside, when 

 examined with the little finger, was found to be soft and warm, 

 smooth, and neatly rounded, but very confined ; it contained only five 

 young ; but another less elaborately formed sheltered no less than 

 nine. The panicles and leaves were slit into minute strips or strings 

 by the teeth of the animal hi order to assist the neatness of its weaving. 

 Mr. Macgillivray found one of these nests in Fifeshire composed of 

 dry blades of coarse grass arranged in a globular form, and placed in 

 the midst of a tuft of Aira cccspitosa, nine inches from the ground : 

 it contained six or seven young, naked and blind. The food of this 

 little mouse consists of corn and grass seeds, insects, and earth-worms : 

 one to which a bit of the tail of a dead blind worm, Anyu.it fragilis, 

 was presented, devoured it greedily. Of insects it is very fond. Mr. 

 Bingley says : " One evening, as I was sitting at my writing-desk, 

 and the animal was playing about in the open part of its cage, a 

 large blue fly happened to buzz against the wires. The little creature, 

 although at twice or thrice the distance of her own length from it, 

 sprang along the wires with the greatest agility, and would certainly 

 have seized it had the space between the wires been sufficiently wide 

 to have admitted her teeth or paws to reach it. I was surprised at 

 this occurrence, as I had been led to believe that the Harvest-Mouse 

 was merely a granivorous animal I caught the fly, and made it buzz 

 in my fingers against the wires. The mouse, though usually shy and 

 timid, immediately came out of her hiding-place, and, running to the 

 spot, seized and devoured it. From this time I fed her with insects 

 whenever I could get them, and she always preferred them to every 

 other kind of food that I offered her." Mr. Macgillivray figures one in 

 the coils of an earth-worm, which it devoured, though the worm at 

 first upset it by twisting round its body. (' Naturalist's Library, 

 Mammalia,' vol. vii. ; ' British Quadrupeds,' pL 27.) 



Colonel Montagu failed to keep it in confinement, but it has been so 

 kept. The Rev. W. Bingley and Mr. Broderip observed that the tail 

 is in a degree prehensile. The latter had a pair in a dormouse's cage 

 for some time, and frequently saw them coil the ends of their tails 

 round the bars, especially when they were clambering along the sides 

 or on the top of it. They became very familiar, soon recognised their 

 friends, and would lie down or rear themselves up to be tickled with 

 a straw or a pen ; an operation which they evidently enjoyed much. 

 We know of no instance when the female has brought forth in con- 

 finement where she has not eaten her young. One just born that 

 was saved from the teeth of the mother is in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, and is perhaps one of the smallest pla- 

 cental quadrupeds that ever breathed. 



It is probably generally spread throughout Europe. It has been 

 found in Siberia, Russia, and Germany. In Britain it is recorded as 

 having occurred in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Devon- 

 shire ; in the three last counties by Colonel Montagu, and noted as 

 not uncommon. It has been found also in Cambridgeshire. Mr. Mac- 

 gillivray had one sent to him from Aberdeenshire, and another from 

 the neighbourhood of Edinburgh : he found, as we have seen, the 

 nest in Fifeshire. 



There are, it appears, in Trebizond, mice (M. Alleni and M. Abbottii) 

 smaller than if. mettoriiu. (' Zool. Proc.,' 1837.) 



We shall here notice those cosmopolites, the Black Rat, the Brown 

 Rat, and the Common Mouse, the peats of civilised man. 



M. Rattut, the Black Rat. This is Le Rat of the French ; Ratto 

 and Sorico of the Italians ; Raton and Rata of the Spaniards ; Rato 

 of the Portuguese ; Ratze of the Germans ; Rot of the Dutch ; Rotta 

 of the Swedes ; Rotte of the Danes ; Llygoden Ffrengig of the 

 Welsh ; Black Rat of the English ; and Ration of the Scotch. It is 

 the M. domctticus major of Ray. 



That this animal is indigenous may be doubted. Mr. Macgillivray 

 observe* that the ' Old English or Black Rat,' as it has been called, is 

 sus much French or Irish as English. That it was in Britain long 

 before the introduction of the Brown Rat, before whose superior 

 strength it is rapidly disappearing, can be doubted as little. Pennant, 

 who gives the British name above stated for the Black Rat, has no 

 British name for the brown species ; and we suspect that the king's 

 rat-catcher, noticed by Pennant, with his scarlet dress embroidered 

 with yellow worsted, on which are figures of mice or rats destroying 

 wheat-sheaves, owed his office in this kingdom to the Black Rat. " It 

 is believed," says Mr. Macgillivray, " to have been originally imported 

 from the continent, where it first made its appearance in the beginning 

 of the 16th century, and is supposed to have come from the East. 

 Vessels in port were formerly liable to be infested by it, so that it soon 

 became as common in America as in Europe; although in the mari- 

 time part* of that country it has now become nearly as scarce as with 

 us, and from the same cause, the predominance of the more enter- 

 prising and stronger Brown Rat." Mr. Bell had previously fixed the 

 middle of the same century for its appearance in this country. " At 

 least," lays he, " no author more antient than that period has 

 described or even alluded to it, Gesner being the first who described 



HAT. HI8T. DIV. VOL. III. 



and figured it." The figure of Gesuer leaves no donbt that the 

 animal represented is the Black Rat, and it is spoken of in such terms 

 that it_ may well have been a long resident in England : " Mus 

 domesticus major, quern Rattum appellarim cum Alberto, quouiam 

 hoc nomine nou Germani tantum, sed Itali etiam, Galli, et Angli, 

 utuntur;" and again, among the names given to the animal by various 

 nations, " Anglice, Rat, Ratte." Shakspere's lines 



" But in a sieve I'll thither sail, 

 And, like a rat without a tail, 

 I '11 do I '11 do and I '11 do ! " 



show that the animal must have been familiarly known to his audience ; 

 and it must have been very common early in the 1 7th century, when 

 the white variety was probably well known ; for we read in the ' Dysart 

 Kirk Session Minutes' (May, 1626), that a suspected witch, one Janet, 

 came to John White's house, " and span on his wife's wheel in her 

 absence, and thereafter there came a White Ration at sundrie times 

 and sat on his cow's back, so that thereafter the cow dwined away." 

 Mr. Bell notices the usurpation of the haunts of this species by the 

 Brown Rat. The Black Rat, he says, " is now rarely found, excepting 

 in old houses of large cities, as in London, in Edinburgh, and some 

 other places, where it still exists in considerable numbers, especially 

 in the cellars and stables of the city of London, in many of which it 

 is more common than the other." Mr. Macgillivray remarks that in 

 Edinburgh it appears to be completely extirpated. " I have not," he 

 continues, " seen a specimen obtained there within these fifteen years." 

 The last-mentioned author also tells us that the Rev. Mr. Gordon, 

 minister of Birnie, some years ago sent him several individuals alive, 

 which were caught in Elgin, where however the species is much less 

 frequently met with than the Brown Rat. In Leith he says it is not 

 very uncommon ; and in other towns and villages in Scotland which 

 are farther inland, it is still to be procured. " Whether," adds Mr. 

 Macgillivray, "the destruction of this animal has been effected by 

 the larger and more ferocious Brown Rat, or, like that of many tribes 

 of the human species, has resulted from the diminution of food, 

 caused by the overwhelming increase of an unfriendly race, it is 

 impossible to determine." 



The Black Rat is grayish-black above and ash-coloured beneath. The 

 ears are half the length of the head, and the tail is rather longer than 

 the body. 



Mr. Bell gives the following dimensions : 



Inches. Lines. 

 Length of the head and body . .74 



Length of the head 1 10 



Length of the ears 11 



Length of the tail 7 11 



It breeds often in the year, and the female ordinarily produces from 

 seven to nine at a birth. Like the brown species it is omnivorous. 

 Mr. Bell thinks it probable, from the proximity of the two countries, 

 that it was introduced into this kingdom from France, and observes 

 that the Welsh name for it, which signifies ' French Mouse,' appears 

 to favour this opinion. From Europe, he adds, it has been sent with 

 the Brown Rat to America, the islands of the Pacific, and to many 

 other places. 



Mr. Thompson (' Zool Proc.,' 1837) notices an Irish Rat with a white 

 breast, which he is inclined to consider distinct from Mus Rattus, and 

 which he names Mus Hibetnicus. 



Sir John Richardson did not observe the Black Rat in the Fur Coun- 

 tries of North America ; and he says that he may venture to affirm 

 that it had not, when he wrote, advanced farther north than the plains 

 of the Saskatchewan. 



Mm decumanus (Pallas), the Brown Rat. This is Le Surmulot of the 

 French, Norway Rat of the English, and M. Norvegicua of Brisson. 

 Why this overwhelming pest has obtained the name of Norway Rat 

 does not appear : so far from its being aboriginal in that country, it 

 was not known to exist there when the name was first applied to it, 

 " It is," says Pennant, " an animal quite unknown in Scandinavia, as 

 we have been assured by several natives of the countries which form 

 that tract, and Linnaeus takes no notice of it in his last ' System.' It 

 is fit here to remark an error of that able naturalist in speaking of the 

 Common Rat, which he says was first brought from America into 

 Europe by means of a ship bound to Antwerp. The fact is that both 

 Rat and Mouse were unknown to the New World before it was dis- 

 covered by the Europeans, and the first rats it ever knew were intro- 

 duced there by a ship from Antwerp. This animal never made its 

 appearance in England till about forty years ago. ... I suspect 

 that this rat came in ships originally from the East Indies. They are 

 found there, and also in vast numbers in Persia, from whence they 

 have made their way westerly even to Petersburg." It made its 

 appearance in the neighbourhood of Paris about 1750. Mr. Bell states 

 that the original country of this rat can no longer be ascertained, 

 although there is reason to believe that it comes from a warmer climate 

 than our own. Mr. Macgillivray says that it is supposed to have been 

 introduced from Persia and the East Indies about 1730, and gradually 

 to have spread over the greater part of the continent of Europe, as 

 well as America, by means of the frequent commercial intercourse 

 established among the nations of these regions. It is not, he observes, 

 confined to cities and villages, but establishes colonies in farin- 



