166 RATS AND PLAGUE. 
longer than the head and body, the length of which scarcely 
ever exceeds seven inches, and the feet are brownish. 
From all the above Mus concolor differs in its small size, 
head and body being about five inches and the tail half an inch 
more, and its soft dense upper fur which however is thickly set 
with flattened grooved spines. . 
Beyond the species mentioned above there are hardly 
likely to be others which come within the vision of our local 
epidemiologist yet though plague is perhaps less to be feared in 
Malaya than in certain other countries an exact knowledge ofthe 
agents disseminating it should be in his possession: it is to 
be hoped, however; if our Sanitary officers should undertake 
‘investigation to this end, that they will have associated with 
them a colleague acquainted with the zoological side of the 
subject that their “work may be free from that vagueness and 
uncertainty so frequently obvious in the reports now. noticed. 
C. B. Kuoss: 
