“MAMMALS OF BERMUDA. 157 
of a vessel containing such animals upon its shores; and in the case of 
the Bermudas, which are known to have been the last resting place of 
many a craft long before they came into the possession of the English, 
there can be no doubt as to the means by which they obtained a-footing 
upon those isles, so far distant from the nearest land. 
As the Norway Rat, which it appears belonged originally to the 
warmer regions of Central Asia, was introduced into the western coun- 
tries of Europe so late as the middle of the eighteenth century,* it 
clearly could not have been the species that overrun the Bermudas, ac- 
cording to Smith, more than a century before.t Most probably it came 
to the islands in some of the vessels sent out by the Bermuda Company 
from England laden with stores for the colonists, about the end of the 
eighteenth century. . 
In some of the older houses, especially near the sea, this rat is very 
troublesome, consuming almost every article it can find, even to the 
bedeclothes of the occupants as they lie asleep, and instances are 
recorded where children have been seriously bitten. during repose at 
night. This rat is also common in the marshes, where it swims and 
dives with facility. The old and full-grown specimens are called 
“beagles” by the islanders. 
MUS RATTUS, L. 
“Black Rat.” 
Mus rattus, Lin. Syst. Nat. I, 1766.—De Kay, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842, 79.—Aud. and Bach. 
N. Amer. Quad. I, 1849, 189, pl. xxiii.—Giebel, Sdught. 1855, 555. 
Mus americanus, De Kay, N. Y. Zool. I, 1842, 81, pl. xxi, f. 2. 
Mus nigricans, Raf. Am. Month. Mag. III, 1818, 446. 
This species, which was once so abundant all over Europe and North 
America, and probably equally so before the introduction of the common 
house-rat into the Bermudas, is now so scarce that it may be almost 
said to be extinct. 
MUS TECTORUM, Savi. 
“6 Tree Rat.” 
Mus tectorum, Savi. ‘‘Nuovi Giornale di Lett. 1825.”—Bonaparte, Fauna Italica, 
plate.—Keys & Blasius, Europ. Wirb. 1842, 36.—Wagner, Suppl. Schreb. ITI, 
1843, 405.—Burmeister, Thiere Brasiliens, I, 1854, 154.—Giebel, Zoologie, 1855, 
555. 
Mus alexandrinus, ‘‘Geoffr. Desc. de VEgypte.” 
Mus flaviventris, ‘Licht. Brants Minzen, 108.” 
* Baird, Mammals of North America, p. 439. 
tSmith, History of Virginia, p. 137. 
