ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



CHAPTER I 

 THE PEST OF EATS 



WE have in the United States three foreign 

 rats, all injurious to health and property. 



1. The brown house-rat (Mus norvegicus), 

 called also gray rat, house-rat, barn-rat, 

 wharf-rat and Norway rat, and, in England, 

 Hanoverian rat. Its average total length is 

 about 16.4 inches, of which 7 inches belongs to 

 the tail, and it usually weighs less than a pound, 

 though specimens have been known so much 

 larger as to weigh 24 to 28 ounces. The gen- 

 eral color is grayish-brown above and whitish 

 below, the long overhairs of the back having 

 black tips. The head is shorter, the muzzle 

 more blunt, the ears smaller and the tail rela- 

 tively shorter than in the other species. It is 



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