332 THE COMMON BROWN RAT. 



they appeared in France towards the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, and were first observed in the neighbourhood of the 

 capital. 



" Its first arrival, as I am assured," says Goldsmith, " was 

 upon the coasts of Ireland, in those ships that traded in pro- 

 visions to Gibraltar ; and perhaps we owe to a single pair of 

 these animals the numerous progeny that now infests the whole 

 extent of the British empire." 



Pallas tells us that they arrived at Astracan, in the autumn of 

 1727, in such numbers, and in so short a time, that nothing 

 could be done to oppose them. They came from the western 

 desert, and traversed the waves of the Volga, which unquestion- 

 ably must have swallowed up part of their horde. They have not 

 advanced any further north, and are not to be found in Siberia. 



America, according to Pennant, received its stock of brown 

 rats by a ship from Antwerp. 



Cuvier says that, in some parts of France, the brown rat is 

 not known. In England and Ireland it is more extensively dis- 

 tributed than in Scotland. In the earliest Scottish records it is 

 stated, that there are no rats whatever in the district of Buchan j 

 and old Hector Boethius, in his History and Chronoklis of Scotland 

 (1541), adds, "as soon as they are brought there they die j " a 

 circumstance also asserted in Shaw's History of Moray shire (Edin. 

 1775), p. 160. 



Dr. Fleming is of opinion that the cause of the black rat, or 

 true British rat, having become so scarce, is the more general 

 use of tiles and slates on house-tops instead of thatch ; but most 

 naturalists think, and perhaps more correctly, that the scarcity 

 of the black rat arises from the superior strength and tyranny 

 of the brown rat ; for it certainly does appear to be true, that 

 wherever the brown rat has settled, the other species has soon 

 become scarcer, and often entirely disappeared. This view of 

 the matter may be greatly supported by the following facts, 

 which occurred abroad, and which relate to other species. 

 Dr. Lund says that, in Brazil, a species of rat, which 'he calls 

 Mus setosus, " made its appearance about the commencement of 



