386 Miscellanies. 



legs very small and slender : toes five in number on all the feet, ter- 

 minated by small hooked nails, with the exception of the four 

 thumbs, which are armed with a small and broad nail : tail about 

 the length of the body, not including the head and neck, covered 

 with short hairs, and terminating in a delicate pencil. Head rather 

 elongated ; snout furnished with from twenty to thirty setse of dif- 

 ferent lengths, some white, others black : teeth, consisting of six 

 molars in each jaw, invested with enamel, and marked on their 

 crowns with transverse eminences : four incisors, short above, and 

 sub-piceous on their anterior surfaces ; inferior, long, compressed, 

 and wliite. 



Dimc7isions. — Total length about nine inches, viz. of the head 

 2 in. 2 tenths, of the body 4 in., of the tail 4 in. : length of the 

 anterior extremities rather more than 1 in. 



Habitat. — Found in the fresh water swamps of New Jersey and 

 South Carolina. The present specimen was taken near " Fast 

 land," in the vicinity of Salem. A slnjiiar specimen was sent to me 

 by Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, S. C— Cab. of A. N. S. Philad. 



Remarks. — Native species of true rats are very rare in the United 

 States ; besides the present perhaps but one other species exists in 

 this country, — unless indeed we admit the Mus rattus to be native. 

 The Mus Sylvaticus is common to Europe and North America ; the 

 Mus leucopus, and Mus nigricans of Raffin. we take, from his 

 descriptions, to be mere synonymes. 



MISCELLANIES. 

 DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



1. Oji the Meteoric Shower of November, 1836. 



By Denison Olmsted, Professor of Natural Philosophy and 



Astronomy rn Yale College. 



For six years in succession, there has been observed, on or about 

 the 13th of November of each year, a remarkable exhibition of 

 shooting stars, which has received the name of the " Meteoric 

 Shower." 



In 1831, the phenomenon was observed in the State of Ohio,* 

 and in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Spain. f In 1832, the 



* Amer. Journal of Science, xxviii, 419. 

 + Bibliotheque Universellc, Sept. 1835. 



