JANUARY 13 



give the matter a thought, regard them as true natives. 

 It may surprise them to be reminded that a couple of 

 centuries ago there was not a brown rat in the British 

 Isles, and that brown rats and rabbits, the two most 

 destructive mammals in our land, are both imported 

 species. Where the brown rat originally came from 

 has been the subject of much discussion. Just as the 

 Spanish peninsula appears to have been the original 

 habitat of the rabbit, so the brown rat seems to have 

 spread outwards from Western Mongolia. Good 

 Jacobites used to attribute their introduction to the 

 Hanoverian dynasty, and indeed they were not far 

 wrong in the matter of synchrony, for the earliest 

 appearance of brown rats in England is noted early in 

 the eighteenth century. They seem, however, not to 

 have reached Scotland until some years after the 

 Stuart star had set for ever at Culloden in 1746. The 

 foreign origin of this species is commemorated in the 

 popular English name, ' Norway rat,' while in Ireland 

 it is known as luuch franncach, the French mouse ; but 

 the utmost that Hanover, Norway, and France can 

 have done is to have passed on to us the pest which 

 had already overrun them from the Orient. Indeed, 

 the Prussian naturalist Pallas (1741-1811) was of 

 opinion that these creatures did not enter Europe 

 before 1727, when there was a notable western exodus 

 of them from Asia, and when they first succeeded in 

 crossing the Volga. Considering, however, the ease 

 with which these brutes are transported in ship cargoes, 

 it is impossible to fix the exact date of their first 

 arrival in a maritime country like this ; and all that 



