278 



ZOOLOGY. 



liarities in the disposition of the teeth, and by their long and 

 scaly tail. They are small animals, and live especially on 

 fruits and roots, but, pressed by hunger, they take to animal 

 food, and will even attack and devour each other. Three 

 species have become common in our houses : the domestic rat, 

 the surmulot, and the mouse. 



Fig. 242. The Field Vole ; Arvicola Agrestis ; Campagnol. 



The rat was not known to the ancients, and seems to have 

 been imported into the Old World from America. The epoch 

 of its introduction is unknown, but it existed in great num- 

 bers where the surmulot now abounds. This latter seems to 

 have almost extirpated the common rat. It is now very rare 

 in Paris, and is to be found chiefly in barns, where it lives on 

 grains and vegetables of all sorts it finds there ; but it has 

 a decided taste for animal food, and it pursues young animals. 

 In country-houses it is a destructive plague, by the damage 

 it does to linen, harness, lard, and, in short, to everything 

 eatable which falls in its way. 



The surmulot is the largest of the rats : it is of a reddish- 

 ^ s ^ =; _______.__ brown colour. Introduced into 



fcrx^l Europe in the eighteenth century, 

 it has multiplied exceedingly. 

 Brought from India to England 

 by sea, it spread into France, and 

 thence into Europe, America, and 

 all the colonies. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Paris they abound 

 in the common sewers, and dig 



burrows just sufficient to hold the 

 F, g .243.-HeadofaEodent. ^^ > 



The mouse is the smallest of the species of rats which 



