The Water Vole.*
This species of rat bears little resemblance to those just enumerated, either in habits or manners. It is as innocent and seclusive as the others are daring and rapacious. It eats neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but lives entirely on roots that grow in the water, and at the water’s edge; which position it never quits under any circumstances, either in summer or winter; but there it lives and dies, in quiet seclusion. It is perfectly herbivorous, and may often be seen sitting on a stone in the stream, or among the rushes on the bank-side, with a piece of succulent root beween its fore-paws, and nibbling its repast in perfect peace with every living thing. In its external appearance it is not unlike a diminutive otter, but is as timid and innocent in its expression as the otter is fierce and vindictive. It is of a reddish-brown colour, and about the size of a common sewer rat, but with a much shorter tail, which is covered with hair. It seems to have no ears, as they are so short that the fur entirely hides them; and its front teeth, or rather incisor teeth, are much longer and stronger than those of the other species of rats, and are perfectly yellow. It has young but twice a year, and very few at a birth; consequently the species is rather scarce. The great majority of those animals which we see about the ditches and rivers are the common brown rat.
The Black Rat (Mus Battus, Linnæus).
This species is one-third less than the brown rat, and with ears and tail longer in proportion. Its colour is greyish black. The head is elongated; the muzzle taper and divided, and garnished with numerous long black hairs. The upper jaw projects far beyond the lower, which is remarkably short; the tongue is smooth; the nostrils open and crescent-shaped; the eyes small, but black, and very prominent. It has three grinders in each jaw (the first of which is the largest), and four incisor or front teeth. In its disposition it is fierce, daring, and omnivorous.
Mr. Bell tells us that, independently of devouring every digestible substance, it will not refuse even old shoes or woollen clothes.
Blumenbach informs us that the black rat is extremely voracious; that it eats even scorpions, and follows man and his provisions everywhere, even on board his ships or into the deepest mines. Mr. Bell says that, from its inferiority in size, it has nearly disappeared; that the brown rat has superseded it to such a degree that with us it has become almost extinct.
This circumstance, it appears, has been a source of great pain and grief to our amusing traveller and naturalist Mr. Waterton, who tells us that he once rode fifty miles to see one, and that when he beheld it he could not help exclaiming, “Poor injured Briton! Hard, indeed, has been the fate of thy family! In another generation, at furthest, it will probably sink down to the dust for ever!”
I fear that our worthy friend and patriot has been labouring under two mistakes. In the first place I shall quote Baron Cuvier, who tells us that the black rat, like the surmulot or brown rat, appears not to be aboriginal in Europe. No evidence exists of this animal being found among the ancients; and the modern authors, who have spoken clearly upon the subject, go no further back than the sixteenth century.
Gesner is, perhaps, the first naturalist who has described the black rat. Some think, with Linnæus and Pallas, that we received it from America; and others believe that it was a present of our own to that country, made after we had ourselves received it from the Eastern regions.
It is certain that the black rat is to be found in all the warm and temperate climates of the globe; that it is wonderfully common in Persia, and multiplied to a prodigious extent in the Western Islands, where it is not obliged by winter to seek refuge in the habitations of man; but where the fields, through the entire year, present it with abundance of nutriment. In all parts of America, from its ravages and devastations, it has become a perfect scourge. In fact, the black rat consumes an immense quantity of provisions, and destroys and damages still more than it consumes, particularly in the fields, where it tears up plants from the roots, of which it eats but a portion.
Gesner furthermore states that these animals bring forth many times in the year, and that during the season of their amours they have very violent combats, and utter cries resembling a sharp hissing. Their young are born entirely naked, and with their eyes shut. They are generally about nine, or sometimes more, in number.
Sir W. Jardine, in his “Naturalist’s Library,” believes that this animal was originally imported from the Continent, where it first made its appearance at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was supposed to come from the East. If so, it may as well be called a Turkish or an Irish rat as an English. Mr. Bell says it is possible, from the proximity of the two countries, that the black rat was first imported into this country from France. Indeed the Welsh name for it, which signifies “French mouse,” appears to favour this opinion. The French, on the other hand, call it the English rat, though it is far more numerous in Paris than London.
Most historians, however, agree as to its being a foreigner, whencesoever it came; and there are no records of its existence in this country prior to the sixteenth century. The immense number of 250,000 rats were killed in a few days in the sewers of Paris; and, with the exception of 500 or 600 black rats, the whole of them were of the brown Norwegian species. The black rats do not then live in deadly strife with their brown neighbours; but, on the contrary, fraternize and live on terms of domestic habitude, whence springs a numerous and motley brood of young ones.
Now, let us look to this side of the Channel, and see how far black rats flourish with us; then we can form a tolerably correct notion as to which climate is most genial to their nature, and come to a pretty fair conclusion as to which country the black rats would call their father-land, were they gifted with the powers of articulation. At all events, it is clear that they are no great rarity in Paris. Now, for my own part, I have seen thousands of rats in London, independently of those I have seen in the country; yet I can safely aver that, with the exception of those seen in the “happy family,” I never once saw a black rat among them; that is to say, a large-eared, sharp-nosed, fierce-eyed, scaly-tailed, sable-coated Mus Rattus. I also add Mr. Waterton’s own testimony to the fact of their scarcity in this country; since it cost him so much time, trouble, and expense to gratify his curiosity in seeing one. Nor is he alone in this respect; for the good people of Bristol, some few years ago, were perfectly astonished upon beholding one which had been caught, and sent it up to the Philosophical Institution, where upon examination they pronounced it to be one of the black English rats—“a race which is now nearly extinct, having been all but exterminated by the rats now ordinarily met with.”
This, I suppose, was the decision of the philosophers of the institution, which perfectly coincides with Mr. Waterton’s views upon the subject. Yet, for my part, I am quite at a loss to know, if England be the natal land of black rats, why they should be more numerous in France than in their native country? or why the brown rat in England should be so barbarous towards the poor native nigger, when, at the same time, in Paris, he places him on a footing of perfect equality.
The opinion that the brown rat is a deadly enemy to the black rat is refuted by the following:—
“Since Louis Philippe left the Tuileries the place has been uninhabited; for a vast multitude of black and brown rats have established an immense colony in the cellars of the once royal castle. Some old shoes, old hats, and some sacks of potatoes, which had been left there, have, up to the present time (1851), amply served them, for provisions; and as there is a direct communication between the cellars and the river Seine, they had everything they required to lead a very joyous life. Recently, however, they have been making excursions into the houses of the Rue de Rivoli, and the inhabitants having made a complaint to the Prefect of the Seine, orders were given to the person
