CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDEE 7, EODENTIA 
443 
straw, and hay for their young; the young of both are born blind and naked; both are exceed- 
ingly prolific. The Black Rat is grayish-black above and ash-color beneath; its length is seven 
to eight inches; the tail a trifle more. The Brown Rat is nine to eleven inches long; the tail 
about eight; it is grayish -brown above and grayish- white beneath. 
"There are," says an exceedingly amusing English author/' "two kinds of rats known in Great 
Britain— the Black Rat and the Brown Rat. The Black Rat, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
old English rat, does not seem to be an aboriginal occupier of the British soil. The earliest men- 
tion of it is by Genner, in his Historia Animalium, published at Zurich about the year 1581. It 
is probable that it was introduced into this country from France, the Welsh name for it being to 
this day, as I have it from a gentleman of Welsh extraction, Llijgoden Ffrancon — 'the French 
mouse ;' and I am, moreover, given to understand, on good authority, that it still abounds in the 
barns and granaries scattered throughout Normandy. We all know the common Brown Rat 
when we see it; the Black Rat is a different looking animal; he is much slighter in make, his 
upper jaw projects further over the lower jaw than it does in the Brown Rat; his ears are much 
larger, and his tail very much longer than in his first cousin, and lastly his color is a jet black, 
with numerous loug hairs projecting out from the lower fur-like coat. He is a very timid crea- 
ture, and rarely shows fight ; he is, in fact, not very powerful, but his want of strength is made 
up by his excessive activity. I have examined several, and found their bodies a mass of muscle 
without a particle of fat." 
It is a fact that may as well be frankly admitted, that, in the Avhole code of animal legislation, 
there is no such thing recognized as any sort of kindness to the " disabled and the aged," but 
quite the contrary. Dogs always worry the dog that is down ; the herd forcibly eject the stricken 
or the hunted deer; and, among animals of every kind, the weak are always driven to the wall. 
This is not only what actually is, but, if the expression may be allowed, it is what should be. 
There is no place in the economy of nature for an old and useless animal, any more than there is 
for a withered leaf, farther than the gathering of it to the common store of materials. This does 
not apply to human beings, because there is a part in them which does not share in the "dis- 
abled and aged" state of the body, though its connection with material nature is of course weak- 
ened by bodily decay; and, for the sake of this, the existence of which is demonstrated by Christi- 
anity only, "Christian men" are bound to cherish the aged to the very last. With animals it is 
quite the reverse ; their affection, if instinct ought under any circumstances to get such a name, 
is all for the young and the vigorous; and their attacks are directed against the feeble and the 
exhausted. If there is any hospitality in them it is Homer's hospitality — "Welcome the coming, 
speed the going;" and many of them — and the rats and mice among the rest — even in the most 
small and delicate of their species, have no objection to Malthusianize, by applying the "positive 
check," and eating the superabundant population of their own nests. 
That rat eats rat is indeed as well established as any other fact in natural history; it is especi- 
ally true that the Norway Rat has waged such war on his cousin the Black Rat, which was his 
predecessor in Europe and America, that the latter has become scarce where it once abounded, 
and in some places is absolutely extinct. Several illustrations of this process of destruction on the 
part of the Norway Rat are furnished by the writer just quoted, among which is the following: 
"Some years ago a London rat-catcher shut up together in a cage the result of his day's work, 
consisting of several dozen rats, of both species, and put them away carefully for the night, their 
intended fate being to afford sport to his employer's dogs the next morning. What was bis as- 
tonishment, when he came to fetch them, to find none but brown rats remaining! these canni- 
bals having cruelly devoured all their sable brethren." 
In proof of the general cannibal propensities of rats we have the following: "I once had three 
rats brought to me in a cage ; in removing one it got hurt. I fed them, and put them into a 
stable. The next morning there were only two rats in the cage, the injured rat having been set 
* P. T. Buckland, son of the celebrated geologist, Dr. Biickland, who has recently published a very clever little 
work entitled "Curiosities of Natural History." It consists of free jottings down of his own observations and expe- 
rience in respect to various animals, and furnishes a large amount of curious knowledge, related in an easy, and at 
the same time spicy manner. 
