. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE BLACK RAT. This was formerly the most common of the Rats in Europe and until the invasion of the Brown Rat the most formidable. It is still found, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, America and nearly all parts of the world. Its vicious head, coarse fur and scaly, hairless tail aie well depicted here. (Mui rat/us.) inches. Its upper surface is dark brownish black, the lower parts being of a somewhat lighter grayish black hue. The feet are of
. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE BLACK RAT. This was formerly the most common of the Rats in Europe and until the invasion of the Brown Rat the most formidable. It is still found, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, America and nearly all parts of the world. Its vicious head, coarse fur and scaly, hairless tail aie well depicted here. (Mui rat/us.) inches. Its upper surface is dark brownish black, the lower parts being of a somewhat lighter grayish black hue. The feet are of a grayish brown tint, slightly lighter on the sides. The relatively slen- der tail shows from two hundred and sixty to two hundred and seventy scaly rings. White in- dividuals are not un- common. The time when this species first appeared in Europe cannot be definitely determined. Albertus Magnus is the first naturalist to mention it as a Ger- man animal; conse- quently it was a com- mon animal as early as the thirteenth cen- tury. Gesner speaks of it as being "an animal that is better known to many than is agreeable to them;" the bishop of Autun excommunicated it from the church in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Possibly it originally came from Persia where it still exists in prodigious numbers. Up to the first half of the last century it reigned alone in Europe; since that time the'Brown Rat has contested the field and has been so success- ful that the Black Rat has been obliged to recede. It is still distributed sparsely over nearly all parts of the globe, however. It rarely occurs in P'urope in compact bodies, existing nearly everywhere it is found at all in small, straggling and widely dis- persed colonies. In Germany it seems to be ncarly extinct; but there are yet a few places infested by it, such as Bremen and Luneburg in northwest- ern German)-, and Rud- olstadt in Thuringia. It has followed Man into all climes of the globe, wandering through the wor
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectmammals
