68 
ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
bad as the scoundrels of a higher order of beings, who 
endowed with the superior powers of intelligence, still 
act as if they possessed all the villainous qualities of the rat 
without being able to offer a similar apology for their con- 
duct. He is one of the most impudent, troublesome, 
mischievous, wicked wretches that ever infested the 
habitations of man. When he gains access to a library, he 
does not hesitate to translate and appropriate to his own use 
the works of the most learned authors, and is not so readily 
detected as some of his brother pirates of the human kind, 
since he does not carry off his prize entire, but cuts it into 
pieces, before conveying it into his den.” The only benefit 
he affords to man is from his skin ; large quantities being 
exported from California (where they are an article of traffic 
among the Chinese population), in a salted state to France ; 
whence after undergoing certain operations and manipulations 
there, these loathsome peltries emerge again into the world in 
the shape of — kid gloves ! the finest so called kid being made 
from rat skin. The elegant white leather in druggists’ cases 
which is so elaborately tied over scent bottles, is also the skin 
of our detested friend. 
The Black Bat (M. Rattus) has disappeared so entirely 
before the previous species as to be almost extinct ; the common 
mouse (. Mus Musculus ), likewise an importation, being 
probably introduced in bales of merchandise, is abundant every 
where; it is very prolific, producing several litters in the 
year ; and we have the authority of Aristotle two thousand 
years ago, that from a pregnant female enclosed in a chest 
of grain, 120 individuals were created in a few months. 
The Pouched Bat ( Pseudostoma bursarius') is found in 
Florida and the extreme South, and is but little known. 
The Jumping Mouse ( G-erbalis Canadensis') is found from 
Canada to Pennsylvania. This timid and active little crea- 
ture is abundantly met with in meadows and grain fields, and 
when not in motion might easily be mistaken for the common 
