roughout India, Ceylon, and in some parts of Burmah.

DESCRIPTION.--Fur greyish-brown, mixed with tawny above, with
longer piles of a dark colour, almost black; ears round; tail
generally longer than head and body, scaly, with short bristles at
the margins of the rings.

SIZE.--Head and body, from 8 to 10 inches; tail, from 6 to 11 inches.

The brown rat of India is identical with that of Europe, most
naturalists being now agreed that it originally came from the East.
It was supposed by Pallas that the brown rat crossed over into Russia
about the year 1727. When frightened by an earthquake, numbers swam
over the Volga from countries bordering on the Caspian Sea. It seems
to have driven out the black rat before it wherever it made its
appearance. In England it was introduced by shipping about the middle
of the last century, and has since then increased to such an extent
as to swarm over the whole country, and render the old English black
rat a comparatively rare animal. From its ferocity and fecundity the
brown rat is a veritable pest; if it cannot beat a retreat from an
enemy it will show most determined fight, and in large numbers will
attack and kill even men. A story is related by Robert Stephenson,
the great engineer, that in a coal-pit in which many horses were
employed, the rats, allured by the grain, had gathered in large
numbers. On the pit being closed for a short time, and the horses
being brought up, the first man who descended on the re-opening of
the work was killed, and devoured by the starving rats. Similar
stories have been told of men in the sewers of Paris. In the horse
slaughterhouses at Montfaucon in Paris, the rats swarm in such
incredible numbers that the carcases of horses killed during the day
would be picked clean to the bone during the night; sometimes upwards
of thirty horses would be so devoured. This shows the carnivorous
tendencies of these abominable pests. I confess to a general love
for all animals, but I draw the line at rats. There is something
repulsive about one of these creatures, and a wicked look about his
large protruding eye, like a black glistening bead, and his ways are
not pleasant; instead of keeping, as he ought, to sweet grain and
pleasant roots, he grubs about for all the carrion and animal matter
he can get.

I find there is no bait so enticing to the brown rat as a piece of
chicken or meat of any kind. I have heard stories of their attacking
children, and even grow