588 MURID^— EPIMYS 



skill as a climber give it a great advantage over its adversary, and even 

 in temperate latitudes it is still, and is likely to remain, the principal 

 " ship rat." 



Distribution in time, and origin : — Judging from its wild distribution 

 and history, this species is of Oriental origin, and the group must be of 

 considerable antiquity in the East. The only fossil remains known, 

 however, are some of perhaps rather questionable age found in the 

 Pleistocene of Europe. Pictet {Mem. Soc. Phys. et Hist. Nat., 1846, 

 xi., 90) described remains, from the gravels of Mattegnin, Geneva, 

 apparently not distinguishable from this species. A lower jaw from the 

 Pleistocene of Lombardy was described by Cornalia {Mamm. foss. de 

 Lomb., 1858, 38), who named it Mus rattus fossilis. To this form 

 Woldrich {Sitzb. kais. Akad. IVtss., Wien., math.-nat. CI., 84, Abt. 1., 250, 

 1881 ; and 88,- Abt. 1., 1025, 1883) referred jaws from the fissure 

 deposits of Zuzlawitz, Bohemia, and his figures indicate a species similar 

 to E. rattus. No fossil remains have been discovered in Britain. If 

 present in Europe during the Pleistocene, the species must have died 

 out, and it was subsequently reintroduced as described above. Many 

 bones were found among the pile-dwellings of Mecklenburg ; these may 

 indicate the presence of the species in Germany before the 13th century 

 (for references see Brandt- Woldrich, j^/w«. Ac. Imp. Sc.,St Petersb.,^^,^^). 

 Description : — E. rattus is smaller, much lighter, and more delicately 

 built than the Brown Rat ; its tail is usually longer, never noticeably 

 shorter, than the head and body. 



The head is slender, with a pointed snout. The naked muzzle-pad 

 is small and has a deep median groove, which is continuous with the 

 lip-cleft. The eyes are large, but not particularly prominent. The ears 

 are of a broad ovate or rounded form ; they are of considerable length 

 (half that of the head), projecting conspicuously from the fur and 

 reaching or covering the eyes when laid forward. Their substance is 

 thin and translucent ; the inner and outer surfaces finely papillose and 

 thinly clad with short hairs. They are practically destitute of meatal 

 valves, the posterior border of the meatus having but a barely indicated 

 ridge. The hands and feet are of moderate size, long and narrow, and 

 they are provided with small, simple claws, which are longest in the 

 feet ; the dorsal surfaces of the hands and feet are clothed with short 

 stiff hairs, but the palms and soles are naked. The skin of each digit 

 is folded in scaly, annular corrugations, of which nine or ten are present 

 on the lower surface of digit 3 in the hand and foot ; on the upper 

 surface, where the corrugation is finer and less conspicuous, the grooves 

 and ridges are about twice as numerous ; the hairs clothing the upper 

 surface of the digits rise principally from the grooves between the 

 corrugations. In each hand the thumb is reduced to a mere tubercle 

 bearing a vestigial nail which does not extend to its edge ; digit 5 is 



