238 MAMMALIA—RAT. 
It has a reddish skin, a long tail, the backbone arched like that of the 
squirrel, the body much thicker, and whiskers like those of a cat. It is 
about nine inches long, and has a tail of the same length as the body, 
covered with minute dusky scales, thickly interspersed with short hairs. It 
is considerably within half a century, since that species has been spread in 
the neighborhood of Paris. They multiply, indeed, prodigiously ; since it is 
well known that they generally produce twelve or fifteen, often sixteen, 
seventeen, eighteen, and even nineteen young ones atatime. The males 
are larger, stronger, and more mischievous than the females. When any 
one pursues, and endeavors to take them, they will turn again, and bite the 
hand or stick which touches them. Their bite is not only sharp but dan- 
gerous, and is immediately followed by a considerable swelling; and the 
wound, though small, is yet long in being closed. They bring forth three 
times in a year, the dams previously preparing a bed for their young; and 
thus two individuals of this species produce, at least, three dozen in the 
space of twelve months. 
THE BLACK RAT 
Is carnivorous, and even, if the expression is allowable, omnivorous. Hard 
substances, however, it prefers to soft ones; it devours wool, stuffs, and 
furniture of all sorts; eats throvh wood, makes hiding-places in walls, 
thence issues in search of prey, and frequently returns with as much as it 
is able to drag along with it, forming, especially when it has young ones 
to provide for, a magazine of the whole. The females bring forth several 
times in the year, though mostly in the summer season; and they usually 
produce five or six at a birth. 
In defiance of the cats, and notwithstanding the poison, the traps, and 
every other method that is used to destroy these creatures, they multiply so 
fast as frequently to do considerable damage. On board a man of war. they 
have been known to consume a hundred weight of biscuits daily, and when, 
to destroy them, the ship has been smoked between decks, six hampers a 
day have for some time been filled with their carcasses. The Isle of France 
was once abandoned, on account of their immense swarms; and, even now, 
they are a severe scourge toit. In old houses, in the country, especially, 
where great quantities of corn are kept, and where the neighboring barns 
and hay-stacks favor their retreat, as well as their multiplication, they are 
often so numerous, that the inhabitants would be obliged to remove with 
their furniture, were they not to devour each other. This we have often, 
by experience, found to be the case, when they have been in any degree 
straitened for provisions; and the method they take to lessen their num- 
—— 
— 
1 Mus raitus, Lin. 
