8o HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



beneath, with a tail longer than the body, and ears half 

 as long as the head. This was the rat or rat ton of Old 

 England, the rat of the witches in Macbeth, and of Piers 

 Plowman. It was of gentler disposition than the rats 

 which are now so familiar. Some of my readers can 

 testify to this, for the pied or white rats kept as pets are 

 usually varieties of the old black rat. 



In 1727 another rat new to Europe settled in vast 

 numbers upon the Volga, as we learn from the Russian 

 naturalist Pallas. This species is generally quoted as the 

 brown rat, but it has several aliases, such as the grey rat, 

 the Norway rat, and the Hanover rat. Its native country 

 has been pretty clearly made out to be Western China. 

 It is lighter in colour than the black rat ; the ears and 

 tail are relatively shorter, and it measures 9 or 10 inches 

 in length instead of 7 or 7^. The brown rat is a bold and 

 enterprising animal of great versatility, feeding upon 

 grain, fish, flesh, or carrion. It takes readily to the water 

 and swims well, not uncommonly haunting ditches and 

 streams, and sometimes burrowing in the bank like a 

 water-vole ; in the Hebrides it is said to live upon shell-fish 

 and cmstacea. It defends itself against cats and dogs, 

 bites sleeping animals, and is particularly destructive to 

 young water-fowl. No lurking-place is too cheerless for 

 it to settle in, and no rival has hitherto been able to stand 

 against it. From the extreme east of Russia the brown 

 rat spread rapidly over Europe. By the middle of the 

 eighteenth century it had become a familiar pest along 

 the Baltic and the Mediterranean, as well as in every part 

 of England ; by the beginning of the American war it had 

 made its way across the Atlantic. There is now no im- 

 portant country in any part of the world which does not 

 harbour the brown rat. Everywhere the black rat has 

 given way before it, and a chance specimen is now a zoo- 

 logical curiosity, to be kept alive in a cage or set up in a 

 museum. 



Our domestic rats and mice are remarkably prolific, 



