SOME MAMMALIAN NOTES 337 



Some young specimens of alexandrinus have been through 

 my hands, and all appear to have darker tails than the 

 adults, apparently due to the black hairs being closer together. 

 I have recently had a fine old male of the M. r. rattus 

 variety brought to me which had some time previously lost 

 its left hind foot. The tibia had been broken through at the 

 middle, and the muscles had healed at the knee, leaving 

 about a quarter of an inch of clean bone projecting. The 

 end of the bone was worn and polished, and the animal bore 

 a rather ridiculous resemblance to a man with a wooden leg. 

 The rat was in good condition, weighing five ounces full. 

 The following measurements of it were carefully taken in 

 the flesh : Head and body, 6f in. ; tail, 9 in. ; ear, in. ; 

 vibrissa., 2f in. ; hind foot, i^in. p> R RuMBELOW> , 



My " note " in the Zoologist of February was as follows : 



" Mr. Rumbelow is, I think, correct in stating Mus rattus 

 and its compeer, M. alexandrinus , are on the increase here- 

 abouts. I am constantly hearing of their appearance in 

 fresh quarters, and of very little to their credit. Cats are 

 very fond of hunting them, and eagerly eat them, leaving 

 only the snout and teeth. The rats themselves are not averse 

 to anything that promises the least nourishment, and are not 

 above nibbling the toe of a sound sleeper. A house in which 

 a babe was some time ago seriously mauled by black rats 

 has since been shut up, for the smell of those poisoned, after 

 the carpenters had been at work, has made the place as in- 

 sanitary as it was before unsavoury. In warehouses, dates, 

 e gg s > J ars of J am anything, in fact is fish in their net, 

 Passing a sail-loft on January 25th, a sailmaker asked me if 

 I could do with a couple of rats, ' one of 'em a clinker ! ' i.e. 

 an extraordinary large one. I gladly accepted them. One 

 was a jet-black male Mus rattus, the other a very large 

 example of Mus rattus alexandrinus. As it differs slightly 

 from one referred to by Mr. J. G. Millais as coming from 

 Yarmouth (Zool., 1905, p. 203), I have thought it worth 

 recording. Measurements : Head and body, 8J in. ; tail, 9 in.; 

 weight, /Joz. Body of a smoke-brown generally, with 

 slightly darker hair on the back, and of a lighter hue below. 

 Both fell victims to their love of Russian tallow, not a scrap 

 of which that sailmaker dare leave about at night, except 

 some placed in a trap for their especial benefit and his own. 

 A very tarry smell emanated from the hides of both rats, 

 due to their having made their beds of such tarry twine as 

 they found lying about the loft. 



" I went with this sailmaker into his oilroom, a place in 



