THE PEST OF RATS 7 



The early history of the brown rat is prac- 

 tically unknown. Various modern writers have 

 asserted that it came originally from Persia 

 or India; but W. T. Blanford, a leading zoolo- 

 gist of British India, states that it is at pres- 

 ent unknown in Persia, and that, as concerns 

 India, the black rat is the generally distributed 

 species, while the brown rat is found only 

 along the coast and the navigable rivers. This 

 seems to imply that the latter is a compara- 

 tively recent immigrant into India; and other 

 evidence seems to show that its original home 

 was northward of the Himalayan ranges. Its 

 resistance to cold supports this hypothesis. 

 It seems to have entered Europe first by cross- 

 ing the Volga into Russia in hunger-driven 

 hordes in 1727, but it reached England from 

 some eastern port a year or two later, coinci- 

 dent with the accession of George I to the 

 British throne. The general, but erroneous, be- 

 lief in Great Britain that it was introduced 

 from Norwegian timber-ships gives it the name 

 "Norway" rat there, as I explained in my Life 

 of Mammals. "It reached our eastern ports in 

 1775 and was popularly credited to the hated 



