1863. | A memoir on the Rats and Mice of India. 337 
house Rat of Trincomali, smaller than the Mus prcumaNnus,* of which we have 
seen only afew specimens in Trincomali, where itis rare in houses in the 
town; but abundant in the dock-yard. Mus DECUMANUS is not very common in 
the hilly parts of the island: other Rats seem to replace it altogether on still 
higher parts. At Newera Ellia, where we resided for seven months, not one 
was observed. But it will not be long, ere the Brown Rat will find its way 
there also. (Prodromus Faune Zeylowice, pp. 60-1.) 
Dr. Kelaart zlso describes— 
“Mus ceytonus, Kelaart. Fur soft, lead colour; hair of upper parts tipped 
with dark fawn and black. Hars large, naked. Whiskers tinged black, Tail 
longer than the head and body, scaly. Head and body 4 in.; tail6 in. This 
small Rat is found in out-houses in the cinnamon gardens at Colombo. I have 
no reason to think it to be the young of the former species. The teeth were 
well developed. The darker colour and long tail will easily distinguish this 
species from other Colombo Rats.” (Ibid., p. 61.) 
The common European Brown Rat is nowhere a more intolerable 
nuisance than in Calcutta and its vicinity: but it is not generally 
distributed over the interior of the country. In 8. India Mr. Elliot 
states that “it is not so common above the Ghats as below.” Col. 
Sykes, however, states that “the Norway or Brown Rat abounds in 
Dukhun.” I observed it to be very numerous at Akyab; but fur- 
ther south, at Rangoon and Moulmein, also in Tavoy and Mergui, 
I remarked no traces of it; nor have we ever received specimens from 
that line of coast; though Dr. Cantor gives it from Penang, and 
notes it as “ cosmopolita.” Other sites in the intertropical Hastern 
Archipelago are noted in p. 834; and the nuisance that Dr. Kane found 
this species to be in the course of his arctic explorations is sufficient- 
ly described in his most interesting narrative. In N. America, Mr. 
Catlin describes its first appearance among the wigwams of the far 
west, where its advent was rather hailed at first by the red men, on 
account of its attacking and destroying the indigenous Murionss; 
but it fast proved to be by far the greater pest of the two, and soon 
domiciled itself as completely among the red men as elsewhere. 
According to Fischer, this noxious animal was introduced into Eurepe 
about the year 1730, and the current statement is that it originated. 
in Persia or its vicinity; if so, it should at least have spread into 
* « A large Brown Rat at Colombo measured, the head and body 10 in., and 
tail 11 in.” (Kelaart.) A specimen with which he favored the Society ag an 
example of his small house Rat of Trincomali appears to me to be a half-erown 
M. nemorauis! and a tailless specimen irom Newera Hllia appears to be quite 
sunilar, 
2 2, 
