44 J. B. CLELAND. 
- Queanbeyan, and that one was seen three years ago at Cul- 
cairn, but there are said to be none at Yass, Narrandera, 
Jerilderie, Berrigan, Corowa and Albury. A. R. McCul- 
loch,+ in 1907, records having received specimens of rats 
from Wagga, where they were found about grocers’ stores 
and stables. I'rom these he was able to show that Mus 
' tompsoni? Ramsay was really Mus (Epimys) rattus. Ben- 
nett’s account? of a visitation of Mus tompsoni (EH. rattus) 
in western Queensland and western New South Wales (east 
of the Darling) in 1887, shows a wide distribution of this — 
species. Rats are found deep down in the mines at Broken 
Hill, where they enter the sanitary pans and eat the feces, 
but I do not know which species these are. 
As regard Queensland, Ham® states that at Brisbane and 
Rockhampton EH. norvegicus was four times as common as 
EF. rattus, but at Townsville and Cairns, where epidemies 
and epizootics had frequently occurred, EL. rattus was the 
more common. 
In Melbourne, Ham (loc cit.) states that E. norvegicus 
was practically the only rat found in the city itself, a few 
E. rattus being occasionally found about the wharves and 
shipping. Through the courtesy of Dr. Robertson and the 
Secretary of the Public Health Department, Melbourne, 
I am informed that, of the rats examined between Janu- 
ary Ist, 1912, and August 31st, 1916, 86.02 per cent. were 
E. norvegicus, 10.93 per cent. EF. rattus (and E. rattus 
alexandrinus), and 3.01 per cent. ‘‘hybrids.’’ 
In Adelaide my recollection of the rats seen as a school- 
boy suggests these were HL. norvegicus. I remember being 
much struck when at the London School of Tropical Medi- 
cine with the beauty of the Alexandrine Rat from a New 
2 McCulloch, Rec. Aust. WSIS; Woh, UOO%, Tos sz 
2 Bennett, Proc. Linn. Soc., N.S.W. (2), I1., 1887, p. 447. 
3 Report on Plague in Queensl., 1900-1907, p. 130. 
