THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 53 



projecting beyond the lips, the ears are ovate and not covered with 

 much hair ; the eyes are large and the whiskers long. The head 

 and body measure about seven inches, and the tail is always as long, if 

 not longer, being generally longer in the male than in the female. 

 It eats almost anything, though not so carnivorous as the Brown 

 Rat, and as MacGillivray suggested, would be an interesting animal 

 if it kept out of human dwellings, and did less damage in pursuit 

 of its food. Its young are born blind, seven, eight, or nine of them 

 at a time, and there are two or three litters a year ; but it is now 

 becoming rare in this country, owing to its enemies being so many, 

 chief among them being the Brown Rat, which is just as cosmo- 

 politan and is superseding it almost everywhere. 



The Brown Rat may be nine inches long in the head and body, 

 which are always an inch or so longer than the tail. In colour it is 

 greyish brown above, darkest on the back, and whitish below, the 

 ears, feet, and tail being flesh-coloured. In build it is rather stout, 

 with a large head, blunt muzzle, rounded ears, and a conspicuously 

 long foot. As in the Black Rat, the proximal pad on the sole of the 

 foot is double the length of the next pad, a distinguishing mark 



BROWN RAT. 

 (Mus decumanus.) 



between these rats and the Common Mouse, in which this pad is 

 generally rounded, and never double as long as the one adjoining. 

 The Brown Rat is the common rat, the rat of the drains and sewers, 

 a truly miscellaneous eater, who will gnaw anything, even elephants' 

 tusks and water pipes, and does damage to almost everything useful 

 to man. He would have been wiped off the British list long since 

 were it not for his fecundity, the female beginning to breed at six 

 months, there being nine or ten young at a time, and four or more 

 litters in a year. He seems somehow to have got into Kirkdale 

 cave during an early voyage of discovery of uncertain date, but 

 the general impression is that he introduced himself to these 

 islands a century or so ago, as the Black Rat had done before 

 and he has distributed himself all over the world. 



