Ratitae

“ The Odontolcae seem to be an early specialized offshoot of the Colymbo Pelargomorphous brigade, while the Ratitae represent a number of side branches of early Alectoromorphae. The Ratitae branched off, probably during the Eocene period, from that still indifferent stock which gave rise to the Tinami + Galli + Gruiformes, when the members of this stock were still in possession of those archaic characters which distinguish Ratitae from Carinatae. ”

“ Starting with the kiwi and cassowary, people have got into the habit of confounding flightless with wingless conditions. It is absolutely certain that the wings of the Ratitae bear the strongest testimony that they are the descendants of typical flying birds.
The pelvis (fig. 13) , consisting of the sacrum (already described) and the pelvic arch, namely ilium, ischium and pubis, it follows that only birds and mammals possess a pelvis proper, whilst such is entirely absent in the Amphibia and in reptiles with the exception of some of the Dinosaurs. ”

“ They vary, according to the species, from reddish-chocolate, wine-purple, or liver-colour to dark blue, bluish-green or primrose, and number from four or five to sixteen; though the smaller figures are perhaps the most reliable, as larger sets, though not uncommon, may be the produce of more than one hen. As in the Turnicidae, and to some extent in the Ratitae, the male alone incubates, sitting about three weeks, and feigning disablement to decoy intruders from the nest. The flesh is very delicate, and good sport may be had with some species near the holes where they daily dust themselves. ”

“ The lively rat shook his ears with all his natural vivacity. “Pardon me,” he cried, “but I’m of Oddity’s opinion,—heroes like Sir Whiskerandos are the very worst travelling companions in the world! How Ratto has escaped with his life I cannot imagine, but I shall certainly not try the experiment of following your fortunes for an hour! I’ve no fancy to be baked in a pie, or starved on a barrel, crushed by a drosky, or worried by a dog, drowned in a sack, or suspended by my tail! ”

“ Rattler opened his sleepy eyes, threw himself on guard with a snap and a buzz, and shook his bony clappers savagely. But the King of Snakes was not afraid. Every snake has a weak spot somewhere, and that is the place to strike him. If he hadn't a weak spot no one else could live about him, and then perhaps he would starve to death at last. If he had not some strong points, where no one could harm him, he couldn't live himself.
As the black crest rose. Old Rattler's tail grew cold, his head dropped, his mouth closed, he straightened out his coil, and staggered helplessly toward his hole. ”

“ Like M. rattus, colour varieties occur often: the melanistic variety, not uncommon in Ireland, being sometimes mistaken for the black rat. It is a larger animal than its congener, more heavily built, with a more powerful head, and blunter jaws. The head and body measure some eight to nine inches, but the tail, as a rule, does not surpass the length of the body alone. Its weight averages about nine ounces. It is extremely fierce and extremely cunning, and in the struggle for existence with allied species has hitherto been consistently successful in the fight. ”

“ Mus rattus rattus (the black, or house rat) is the rat of the Middle Ages in Europe. It probably reached that continent some six hundred years before the Norway rat arrived. The black rat preceded the Norway rat in North America, and occurs still in scattered localities in the northern United States. Its diagnostic characteristics are: the ears when laid forward extend at least to the middle of the eye; the tail is longer than the head and body ”

“ Another sub-species, the Tree or Roof Rat (E. rattus frugivorus) , common in the Mediterranean region, often appears in our ports. It has long, soft and dense fur, of light grey or brown on the upper parts and whitish below (pure white to pale yellow) , and the feet usually white above.
The Black Rat is more of a climber than a burrower; more cleanly in its feeding than its brown rival. The pink-skinned young are born without fur, sight, or hearing. ”

“ Ratavia, as one may designate it, resembles China in that there has never been a census of its population, but that it approximates to the mathematical infinite. They are everywhere—large rats, small rats, bushy rats, shy rats and impudent, with their malign whiskers, their obscene eyes, loathsome all the way from overlapping teeth to kangaroo tail. ”

“ But rats have a large history of their own, outside rat-pits. In Egypt and Chaldsea they were the symbol of utter destruction, while in India they are to-day the emblem of prosperous wisdom. The Romans took augury from rats, — happy indeed the man who saw a white one; and Apollo, the most artistic of the Greek divinities, did not scorn the title of the rat-killer. In this very England of ours, the hardy Norseman rats bore their share in the Conquest nobly, and on the continent they have ruined a city and a river. Rats, they say, have scuttled ships, and it is certain they once ate up a bishop. ”

“ Struthio alone still stands aloof, possibly because it is the oldest and most specialized form. This genus was already typically developed in late Miocene times, and with a. very wide geographical distribution (see BIRD, Fossil) , but of the affinities of the other mid- and early tertiary flightless birds we know nothing, and it must be emphasized that we should probably not be able to classify a truly ancestral Ratite, namely, a bird which is still to a certain extent carinate and not yet ratite. It is impossible to give a satisfactory diagnosis of such intermediate forms. ”

“ I saw a lemming migration in Norway, but that was different," explained Rastell. "It seems to me that if we actually saw one of these nocturnal attacks, we might learn why they wanted to do it."
"He is deadly right," agreed Professor Wilson. "A few actual facts are worth a hundred theories."
"That is why I have asked you to help me," explained the richest man in New York. "I have prepared some experimental stations for your use. I can put you in a grocery warehouse and guarantee that inside of a week you will see more rats than you ever dreamed of. I have a laundry and a small hotel. ”

“ The presence of three generations of this animal, in the same stack, with a great number of the Mus decumanus, speaks I think decisively against the latter species destroying them.Mr. Edward Benn, who has frequently heard of the capture of black rats with white spots on their breasts, had it always described to him as being shorter in the tail than a second species of black rat, also described to him, and which was, perhaps, Mus rattus, a specimen of which, as already mentioned, he procured for me, in December, 1842. ”

“ We cannot, at a moment when his own fate lies trembling on the balance, but admire him when we see him availing himself of every opportunity to increase his store of lacustrine shells, or tropic plants, eager for the possession of a strange bird without regard to its colour or beauty,{236} as ready to examine with interest a new species of rat as he is in the measurements of a human skull. ”

“ Some on their heads weare the wing of a bird, or some large feather with a Rattell. Those Rattels are somewhat like the chape of a Rapier, but lesse, which they take from the taile of a snake. Many have the whole skinne of a Hawke or some strange foule, stuffed with the wings abroad. Others a broad peece of Copper, and some the hand of their enemy dryed. Their heads and shoulders are painted red with the roote Pocone brayed to powder, mixed with oyle, this they hold in sommer to preserve them from the heate, and in winter from the cold. ”

“ It was precisely the place where they would be likely to thrive, as being haunted by reed-rats—the smaller of a brown colour, the larger of a grey hue with black stripes—as well as by swarms of the striped mice which build in the bushes. Reed-rats are venturesome creatures that from their shape might almost be called jumping-shrews. The largest of them are about the size of acommon rat. They live in holes underneath rocks, their food consisting of insects and larvæ. They are always on the alert, and move very nimbly ”

“ The place was scarcely worth living in, so infested was it with these rats. The people found them in their breeches or petticoats when they put on their clothes in the morning, and it was nothing unusual to discover a rat’s nest in one’s shoes or pockets, or in one’s Sunday hat or bonnet.
The rats were great black creatures that ran boldly through the streets in broad daylight, and swarmed all over the houses. There was not a barn, or a cornrick, or a storeroom, or a cupboard, but they gnawed their way into it. ”

“ The rat-catcher to the East-India Company has often destroyed as many as five hundred in a ship newly arrived from Calcutta. The genuine ship-rat is a more delicate animal than the brown rat, and has so strong a resemblance to the old Norman breed, that we cannot help thinking they are intimately related. The same fine large ear, sharp nose, long tail, dark fur, and small size, characterize both, and a like antipathy exists between them and the Norwegian species. ”

“ This species is scarcely equal in size to a full grown common black rat, (Mus Rattus) , the head is rather shorter in proportion, the tarsi are smaller, and the tail is longer. In the character of the fur, and length of the hairs, it very closely resembles that species: the ears are larger than in M. decumanus, and about equal to those of M. Rattus. In having the hairs of the under parts of the body of an uniform colour, (i. e. not gray at the base,) it resembles the Mus Tectorum of Savi ”

“ So there were many in the cañon, beasts and birds and snakes too, who hated Old Rattler, but only a few dared face him. And one of these was Glittershield, [1] whom men call the King of Snakes, and in a minute I shall tell you why.
And when Old Rattler was doing all that I have said, the King Snake lay low on a bed of pine needles, behind a bunch of fern, and watched with keen, sharp eye. The angry buzz of Rattler's tail, which scared the chipmunks and the bullfrogs and all the rest of the beast folk, was music for Glittershield. ”

“ I have seen a tame white rat smeared with a certain composition, let loose in a vault, and in less than half an hour return, followed by at least half a dozen others, who appeared so enamoured of the white-coloured decoy, or of some scent that hung about him, that they suffered themselves to be taken alive in the rat-catcher’s hand, and never so much as offer to bite. ”

“ BLACK RAT. This animal is the old genuine English House-Rat, no other being known in and about houses, for many ages, in this country, and differs in many particulars from the Norway Rat, last described, for they do not burrow and run into shores as the others do, but chiefly lie in the cielings and wainscots in houses, and in out-houses they lie under the ridge-tiles and behind the rafters, and run along the side-plates ”

“ There is a smaller rat, which the natives in the goldfields districts get in rather an ingenious way. This rat makes a single burrow, with a nest at the end of it close beneath the surface. When it is inside the hole it fills in the entrance and retires to its nest. This is ventilated by a little hole to the surface, the mouth of this hole being hidden with small stones and sticks. The rat, however, with all his cunning has only built a mark by which his home may be discovered by the native. ”

“ The smaller black rat and roof rat formerly existed in most parts of the Old World. They preceded the brown rat also in America, but when the latter arrived were promptly reduced by it to a secondary position or exterminated. Black rats still exist in some parts of the United States, and roof rats are common with the brown rat in the milder climate of the Southern States. ”

“ The black rat has nearly disappeared from most of its former haunts in the United States and the roof rat is mainly restricted to southern localities with a mild climate.
Neither the brown, black, nor roof rat has any near relatives among native rats of America, and all may be distinguished from our native animals by their coarser hair and long, naked tails. ”

“ The thumb of the forefeet is reduced to a mere tubercle.
Although the Rats have much to do with garbage and offensive matters, they take the greatest of care to maintain their own cleanliness and a spruce appearance, spending much of their time in cleaning their fur and paws. One of the reasons for regretting the possible extirpation of the Black Rat by his more pushful relative, was, no doubt, his less ferocious ways and well-known milder disposition—a trait which is obvious to any one who has handled the domesticated albino, or White Rat, which is generally considered to be of this species. ”

“ The principal characters which distinguish the rat remain in all countries, but there are several species. The black rat is that which first inhabited this island; but it has been nearly driven out by the brown, which is, without any foundation, termed the Norway rat. It came from India, Persia, etc., and is said to have appeared in Europe after a great earthquake in 1727. All are so eminently carnivorous, that they do not make the least ceremony of devouring each other in times of scarcity ”

“ Ignorance produced genera, but science will ever continue to create proper names; and we shall not be afraid of increasing the number whenever we have occasion to delineate different species.
Under the generic name of rat several species of little animals have been comprised and confounded; but we appropriate this name solely to the common rat, which is of a blackish colour, and lives in our houses; they generally inhabit barns and granaries, from whence, when food is scarce they invade our dwellings. The rat is carnivorous, or if the expression may be allowed, an omnivorous animal ”