I 



RATS 145 



of M. rattus and M. decumanus caught was as 

 seven is to three, in open spaces, gardens, 

 &c., the latter was much the commoner. 

 Yet the report of the Plague Commission 

 states that the authors ' do not think it an 

 exaggeration to state that every inhabited 

 building in Bombay City and Island, not 



Fig. 47. — Head of Mus decumanus. (From Flower and Lyddeker.) 



excepting even the better-class bungalows, 

 shelters its colony of M. rattus.' 



Both species readily take to water, though 

 M. rattus, being the better climber, more 

 readily gets on shipboard. They will swim 

 rivers and arms of the sea. The rats which 

 infest the London Zoological Gardens are 

 said to swim nightly the canal in Regent's 

 Park. Rats constantly make their way to 

 coastal islands, and in a comparative short 

 time clear the place of indigenous rabbits 

 and birds. Puffin Island, off the coast of 

 Anglesea, and the Copeland Islands, in Belfast 

 Bay, are two examples of islands at one time 



