THE GROWTH OF GROUPS 85 



doubt would have been removed. However, their iso- 

 lated position among the rats of the district is against 

 their being commemorated by a name. 



As already mentioned, these sports were captured 

 in the village of Nowshera Dhala, where nine hundred 

 other rats were obtained and twenty-two thousand 

 normal rats were caught in the surrounding villages. 

 There may be a few more of the kind still living in the 

 neighbourhood, but as the couple stand out alone among 

 so many of the normal kind we may feel sure that they 

 do not belong to an established species but to a family 

 group such as we have seen at Rangoon and Poona. 



We know the nature of the rodent population of the 

 district and we know that the couple were caught together 

 in a house of a certain village but we have no other in- 

 formation ; we do not know if rats of the common kind 

 were also living in that house. 



The pair were male and female, the latter being preg- 

 nant and bearing four early embryos. It is probable 

 that the four young ones, if they had been born, would 

 have resembled their parents. 



Special stress has been laid on the fact that these 

 two sports each possess a particular combination of four 

 distinct characters which marks them off from the normal 

 multitude. It may be asked, what are your reasons for 

 speaking of the characters as things distinct in the con- 

 stitution of the animals ? To this the reply is Because 

 those characters are found separately in other sports 

 which have been captured in other places. For example, 

 Firstly, albiventralism appears frequently as a single 

 character among Indian rats, a fact which has been 

 dealt with at length in the last chapter. Secondly, the 



