5;36 



RAT. 



0:1 the Hanks, and passing into whitish ash on the 

 under part, and also on the feet. It is found near 

 the habitation of man, and, like the brown rat, it 

 likes to be near water. The tail is very little more 

 than half the length of the body ; and the half- 

 webbed feet show that it is an animal well adapted 

 for swimming if occasion requires. 



THE ALEXANDRIAN RAT (M. Alexandrinus), is in 

 some respects the very reverse of the one last men- 

 tioned. It inhabits dry places in Egypt. The upper 

 colour is reddish grey, with the hairs on the back 

 flattened, broader at the middle than at either end, 

 and striped on the one side. The under parts are ash 

 colour. The tail is one-fourth longer than the body. 

 THE ICELAND RAT ( M. Islandicus). Even Ice- 

 land, cold as it is, and remote from any other land, 

 has its peculiar species of rat. It is grey, with the 

 exception of the back, which is blackish, and there 

 are some yellowish spots on the flanks. The tail is 

 rather longer than the body, nearly naked of hair, 

 but marked with numerous rings of scaly plates on 

 the epidermis. 



There are various other rats named in other parts 

 of the world ; but as very little is known of their 

 manners, and the little that is known resembles the 

 manners of the rats of this country, they have not 

 much attraction for the general reader. The distinc- 

 tions of them, as museum subjects, are also a little 

 confused, as the very same species appears to have 

 got two or three different names, from the different 

 authors that have described it. Some of those which 

 have been named rats, are also not true rats ; for they 

 both want the tubercles on their claws ; and the ani- 

 mals are of course more vegetable in their feeding, 

 and less disposed to haunt houses, or reside in the 

 close vicinity of them. These are the characters 

 which we associate with the name rat, and therefore 

 it were as well that it should be confined to such 

 animals ; at least, if that were done, the name would 

 be more expressive of the characters. Of these true 

 or carnivorous rats there do not appear to be any 

 which are more aquatic in their habits than the 

 brown rat ; arid though that prefers situations near 

 the water, and can swim, it cannot with much pro- 

 priety be called an aquatic animal. Therefore, in 

 strict language, there is no such animal as a " water- 

 rat." 



We shall now notice a few of the leading species 

 of the mice, which, as we have said, have still the 

 same character in the cheek-teeth as the rats, only 

 they are smaller and less powerful, but certainly not 

 less mischievous, than their congeners. They are 

 also more widely dispersed than the rats ; for, though 

 " the mouse," which is the typical animal, comes 

 more into the dwellings of man than any other 

 speciea of mammalia, yet there are others which 

 keep more to the fields or the woods. 



Mice have been known from the earliest times ; 

 and they appear to have been peculiarly numerous 

 in the early ages. While heathen temples were in 

 use, and sacrifices offered, they held out powerful 

 attractions to mice ; and when the gods of Olympus 

 are holding a sage council as to what part, or whether 

 any part, they shall take in the Mar between them 

 and the frogs, Minerva is made to break out in a 

 tirade against them for gnawing her web on the 

 loom and nibbling her sacrifices on the altar. Poly- 

 theism thus appears to have been a mode of worship 

 well adapted to the mice ; and the temples appear 



to have been fine and fat pastures for them, at time* 

 when the larders of the people were not so well 

 stored as they are at the present day. Matters are 

 now much changed for the worse to mice, and the 

 jetter to men; for a "church-mouse" has become 

 the current name for leanness and poverty. Yet 

 mice are still not unfrequently met with in churches ; 

 and in a country church a mouse may sometimes 

 je seen on the canopy of the pulpit looking down 

 ,vith wondering eyes on the congregation. They 

 meet with more food in such places than one would 

 at first suppose. Mice are very insectivorous, and 

 capture and eat great numbers of flies and beetles, 

 of which there is usually no lack about churches. 

 Thus, in spite of the universality of the proverb, 

 a church-mouse is really not that starveling which it is 

 called. 



The name mouse, which, though differently pro- 

 nounced by the several nations that use languages 

 derived from the same stock as the English, is the 

 same as the Greek name, and that name is from 

 the active form of the verb " to /tide,'" and means that 

 which hides itself. The Highland name luck is 

 "nearly ,the same, but can hardly be rendered : "that 

 which whisks into holes" is something like the mean- 

 ing, but not the whole of it. The Frencli name 

 sour'is, and the Italian sorice, are obviously from the 

 Latin sorex, which does not mean a mouse at all, 

 but is the name of the shrews, which are carnivorous 

 animals, having all the three kinds of teeth, and of 

 coarse of a totally different order though the shrews 

 have very improperly been called mice. 



THE COMMON MOUSE (M. mmculus}. Though a 

 very mischievous little creature, the common mouse 

 is very pretty, and nothing can separate it from the 

 human race ; for, let man migrate where he will, the 

 mouse is sure to accompany him, and to share in all 

 his provisions, if it can. The only other animal that 

 has been an equally constant attendant upon man in 

 all his movements is the common house-fly, which 

 serves in part as food to the mouse. Every home 

 and every out-house has mice in it, and wherever 

 the mouse is found the fly is found also. It is the 

 mouse that has led to the domestication of the com- 

 mon cat ; and were it not for cats, mice would so 

 multiply in houses as to be intolerable. The mouse 

 is a timid animal, but it can be tamed without much 

 difficulty ; and it never displays any of the ferocity 

 of the rats. The taming of mice is, however, rather 

 their consenting to be fed and fondled, than any 

 taming in the proper sense of the word, any calling 

 forth of a proper propensity. Propensity of this 

 kind they have none, for they are not social in any 

 one part of their own economy. They of course 

 pair in a temporary way, but the pair have no attach- 

 ment to each other. They breed many times in the 

 course of the year ; and as they are always in 

 shelter, they breed just as freely in the cold season 

 as in the warm. The breeds are not quite so nume- 

 rous as in some of the rats, but they breed more fre- 

 quently in the course of the year ; six or seven is 

 about the average number in a brood ; and as all the 

 genus come into the world blind and naked, the 

 mother prepares a warm nest for their reception. If 

 they are supplied with food, they continue to live and 

 breed away " in shoals and nations," without coming 

 abroad, or seeking to change their quarters. Aristolli; 

 ascertained this fact by the actual experiment of en- 

 closing one gravid female in a vessel of corn, and 



