THE BLACK OR SHIP RAT 587 



Patterson {Zoologist, and Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary) reported 

 that the rats were still apparently increasing in numbers and 

 occupying fresh haunts ; and he wrote that they were still abundant 

 in 1910. Specimens taken by Patterson were sent by Southwell to 

 Barrett- Hamilton from Yarmouth in 1896. 



If the Brown Rat has displaced the Black Rat from a large part of 

 Europe, the latter species is still unrivalled in the rdle of a mariner. 

 As such it frequently makes a reappearance in ports and along coasts 

 whence it has, as a landsman, long since vanished. Sometimes it 

 comes ashore from wrecks. Thus T. Cornish (^Zoologist, 1878, 388) 

 notes that after the wreck of an Italian grain-ship, the Espagnol, in 

 Acton Cove, Marazion, Cornwall, " the whole of the surrounding 

 district was swarming with these little rats." The " English Black 

 Rat" is also mentioned as "although rare in this district, not extinct," 

 and Cornish recorded its occurrence in Cornwall in 1889 {Zoologist, 

 1889,434 and 450). Again, a "breed "of black rats swam ashore at 

 Seascale from the wreck of a foreign fruit- vessel in 1866, and became 

 temporarily established (T. Lindsay, in Lakeland, 81); and another 

 important description of a landing (on Man) of these foreign rats is 

 given by Millais (ii., 213). A constant interchange of rats takes place 

 between vessels lying in port and the land, but owing to the relatively 

 small numbers of rats involved, such movements naturally attract 

 attention less frequently. When at Marseru, Basutoland, about 1904, 

 Mr Wroughton saw three specimens of E. r. rattus which came out 

 alive from packing-cases imported by the hospital; these .packages had 

 come by sea from Europe to East London, and thence by rail, followed 

 by over a month's trek. 



Distribution and status : — E. rattus is naturally distributed through- 

 out southern Asia. Semi-parasitic races {E. r.frugivorus and r. alexan- 

 drinus), retaining the wild coloration, have spread thence by way of 

 Asia Minor and Arabia throughout Africa north of the Sahara and 

 throughout the south of Europe. These on colonising temperate 

 Europe have become completely parasitic, and have developed as a 

 peculiar dusky race or sub-species, E. r. rattus. These parasitic races 

 have been subsequently dispersed artificially though unwittingly 

 throughout the world. 



Within the last two centuries competition with the much larger and 

 heavier Brown Rat (E. norvegicus) has almost completely eliminated 

 the present species from the temperate countries of Europe, and from 

 much of North America; here and there, however, in these regions 

 colonies still manage to survive. In warmer countries more suited to 

 Its organisation, and where consequently it is not condemned to a 

 purely parasitic existence, this species is well able to maintain its 

 ground and is still the " common rat." At sea its lightness and superior 



