S8o MURID^— EPIMYS 



the sixteenth century only, and they cite Gesner as the first describer. 

 Others suppose that the Black Rat arrived in Europe in the Middle 

 Ages, and they rely on Albertus Magnus, who wrote in the middle of 

 the thirteenth century, " Est autem. magnum quod nos ratum vocamus ; 

 et est in arboribus habitans,fuscum nigris in facie maculis {De Animalibus, 

 lib. xxii., 182); but this passage, as pointed out by de I'lsle, is a 

 description of Eliomys, and may be cited as a proof that rats were 

 unknown at Cologne, Germany, when it was written. They were 

 certainly known in France in the early thirteenth century, since they 

 are clearly indicated in the well-known ballads of Reynard {Roman du 

 Renart, early thirteenth century ; Renart le nouvel, late thirteenth 

 century ; and Renart le contrefait, early fourteenth century). Beyond 

 the evidence of the legendary Pied Piper of Hameln}- no such early 

 German record is known (but see under Distribution in Time, p. 588). 



In England rats were considered nuisances in the thirteenth and 

 fourteenth centuries (Rogers, i., 33). They were caught at Weston in 

 1297, and in Oxford on two occasions, in 1335 and 1363 : in the former 

 case a farthing apiece was paid for them, a circumstance which caused 

 Rogers to think that, in the general practice that prevailed of using fur 

 of all kinds, rat skins had a market value {pp. cit., 282). Arsenic as a 

 poison was known {op. cit., 33), and Chaucer has (in the Pardonere's 

 Tale) : " And forth he goth, no lenger wold he tary, Into the toun 

 unto a Potecary, And praied him that he him wolde sell Som poison, 

 that he might his ratouns quell." A femur was obtained from the 

 midden of Rayleigh Castle, Essex, a stronghold occupied from the end 

 of the eleventh to the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the 

 whitish colour of the bone suggested that the specimen might be " some- 

 what more recent than most of the remains from the midden."^ 



The bones of " rats " found by J. P. Bartlett in Romano-British 

 tumuli were in all probability remains of the Water Rat. References to 

 rats occur in the Master of Game (218) and in Turberville (1575, 147), 

 where they or mice are spoken of as food for falcons. Elizabeth's Acte 

 for ^servacon of Grayne set a price of one penny " for the heades of 

 everie three Rattes or twelve myse." 



In Ireland the Black Rat was probably numerous and well known 

 from at least the twelfth century, for we have Giraldus Cambrensis's 

 statement^ {Topographia Hibernica, 11 83- 1 186): Est et aliud ibi {i.e. 



1 According to this legend Hameln suffered a terrible plague of rats in 1259 or 

 1284. The piper attracted the rats with his music, and led them to destruction in 

 the Weser. The citizens cheated him of his reward ; whereupon the piper re-entered 

 the city on 26th June, played another tune, and drew all the children, save a lame 

 one, after him into the interior of the low hill called the Koppenberg. The records 

 of the town were long dated from the latter tragic event. 



^ Hinton, Essex Naturalist, xvii., 17, 1912. 



' See Millais, ii., 209, for other references to rats by Giraldus in Ireland and Wales. 



