130 
THE RAT. 
than the odious one it has held so long, since the great 
French naturalists, Count BufFon and Baron Cuvier, have 
already supplied it. They call it the " Sermulotr 
Here then is a name which is as smooth and pleasing in 
its sound as the other is harsh, grating, and discordant. 
Therefore, let us for the remainder of these articles style it 
the *'Sermulot." 
The author of the popular " History of Mammalia," says 
there are parts of the world besides China where sermulots 
are eaten, and such sermulots, or rats, as would astonish those 
accustomed to the British species, which, take even the 
largest, are Liliputians, when compared with a native of 
the East Indies, as first satisfactorily described in the 
"Linnsean Transactions." The specimen here described 
was a female, and weighed two pounds eleven ounces ; 
its total length being two feet two inches and a quarter. 
It goes on to state that the male grows larger, and weighs 
three pounds and upwards ; so that the natives have on 
the table before them an animal as large as a wild rabbit ; 
and, doubtless, as they have no prejudices or scruples, the 
animal eats just as palatably. It is also affirmed that the 
quality of the flesh is according to the food it eats. 
In a work entitled " Three Years' Besidence at Sierra 
Leone," the author states, that the more civilized among the 
liberated Africans esteem the rat (or rather, as they call it, 
the ground -pig) as very good food, and that the author's 
domestic servants constantly set snares and traps for the rat 
and other bush meat, such as squirrels, monkeys, &c. 
Now, which of the two would be most pleasing to the eye, 
and consequently eat the best, — a ground-pig or a monkey ? 
I here speak upon the testimony of others, that when 
properly bled and prepared for cooking, no diminutive suck- 
ing-pig, however choice, can look more fair, plump, and 
tempting than does the barn-sermulot, with its little kidneys 
enveloped in a delicate bed of pinky-white fat ; while the 
monkey, on the other hand, looks like a little shrivelled-up 
Indian. 
A lady informs us, that when at Naples she was surprised 
to see, in some of the shops, rows ol sermulots suspended by 
their tails like ropes of onions for sale. Upon inquiiy, she 
was informed that they were eaten by the lower order of 
