OLD ENGLISH RATS.
The old English black rat (Mus rattus), which has been nearly superseded in this country by the brown Norway rat, still lingers at retired farmhouses in this county, as, for instance, at Grimsend, Alfrick, Clay Green, and Wick, near Worcester. The brown rat was unknown in England till 1730. It is said that the great numbers of these intruders in the Isle of France drove the Dutch from that settlement.