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; so that on one occasion, already spoken of, when I and my companions stood a chance of being starved ourselves, we felt sure that the violent screams and struggles we heard going on among the rats behind the planks, arose from the meals which the strong were making upon their more feeble brethren. Rats are nocturnal in their habits, and like to live in subterranean, or mysterious abodes. They are found in islands lying in the midst of the ocean, till the moment of their discovery to us, supposed not to have been visited by man, and yet the question still remains unsettled, whether the differences which exist in rats were caused by locality, or whether they were so from the beginning. There is now no known spot free from the Norway rat, and the greater the number, of course the more impudent they become. In Ceylon, I am told, where they are innumerable, they perch on the top of a chair, or screen, and sit there till something is thrown at them, at which they slowly retreat. A noise is heard in the verandah close by you, and you see a party of rats, disputing with a dog for the possession of some object. A traveller in Ceylon saw his dogs set upon a rat, and making them relinquish it, he took it up by the tail, the dogs leaping after it the whole time; he carried it into his dining-room, to examine it there by the light of the lamp, during the whole of which period it remained as if it were dead; limbs hanging, and not a muscle moving. After five minutes he threw it among the dogs, who were still in a state of great excitement; and to the astonishment of all present, it suddenly jumped upon its legs, and ran away so fast that it baffled all its pursuers.