126 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



it is said to eat almost all vegetable matters. It inhabits 

 the banks of rivers, and sometimes migrates in search of a 

 new domicile for a considerable distance. It is a good 

 swimmer, digs burrows in the earth by means of its strong 

 fore-nails with facility, and dwells in them. The female 

 brings forth five or six at a time, according to Molina, and 

 from four to seven, according to d'Azara, who very soon 

 learn to attend her in all her excursions in the great busi- 

 ness of animals, the search of their subsistence. 



We now come to the Rats, properly so called, which as 

 a genus we shall forbear to notice ; and shall here pass by 

 theMusGiganteusof Hardwicke,(the Bandicote Rat of Pen. ?) 

 as being principally remarkable for its size, as big as a Rab- 

 bit, and proceed to the Common Rat, which, like the Surmu- 

 lot, or Brown Rat, appears not to be aboriginal in Europe. 

 Nothing indicates any knowledge of this animal among the 

 ancients, and the modern authors who have spoken clearly 

 on the subject, go no farther back than the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. Gessner is perhaps the first naturalist who has de- 

 scribed it. Had this animal lived formerly as it does at 

 present, among us, and at our expense, it is not probable 

 that all mention of it would have been omitted, especially 

 as we find notices of other animals of a similar kind, less 

 remarkable and less destructive, such as the Mouse, Dor- 

 mouse, fyc. Some naturalists think with Linnaeus andPal- 

 las, that we have received it from America, and others be- 

 lieve that it is a present of our own to that country, made 

 after we had ourselves received it from the eastern regions. 

 To this question it is perhaps impossible to reply, and with 

 the lights which we possess on the subject, conjecture is 

 but a frivolous amusement. It is certain that the Rat is 

 to be found in all the warm and temperate climates of the 

 globe, that it is wonderfully common in Persia, and multi- 

 plied to a prodigious extent in the western islands, where 

 it is not obliged by winter to seek a refuge in the habita- 



