As compared with the Black Rat he is more heavily built, and the combined length of head and body is eight or nine inches, whilst the thicker, scaly-ringed tail is only equal to, or less than, the length of the body alone. His head is proportionately shorter, with blunter muzzle, much smaller ears and more prominent though smaller eyes. The fur on the upper parts is grey-brown with a tawny tinge, and dirty white on the under parts. The ears, feet, and tail are flesh-coloured. It sometimes occurs with black or blackish fur, and is then frequently mistaken for the Black Rat; but the relative length of tail to body is a superficial character by which they can be separated at once. There is a black race of this species on the east coast of Ireland to which some authors have given the distinctive name of _Epimys hibernicus_. It appears to have extended its range from Ireland to the Hebrides. In one form or other the Brown Rat has extended to nearly every part of the British Islands and their islets. [Illustration: *Skeleton and Molars of Brown Rat.*] The Brown Rat becomes a parent at the age of six months, and produces four or five litters in a year. Ordinarily these consist of from four to ten blind, deaf, and naked young; but much larger litters are on record, the highest of which we have seen a note being twenty! Sometimes the young grow up hairless or blind. Some years ago we disturbed a nest in the garden from which issued half a dozen young Rats about four inches long (head and body), all blind. They moved about in a very uncertain manner, and were easily despatched. Similar cases have been recorded. At the meeting of the Zoological Society in December, 1902, a hairless Rat was exhibited on behalf of Mr. G. A. Doubleday, one of three captured at Leyton, Essex, in the same condition. The skin, which was slate coloured, was wrinkled into folds all over the body. Millais mentions a hairless Rat with yellow skin. In the country--where it is known as the Barn Rat--the Tawny Owl and the Weasel are the farmer's best friends as Rat-catchers, though they do not always get the consideration that their services merit. The Weasel tribe are admittedly also destroyers of poultry; but the depredations of the Rat in this connection are much more serious. They do much mischief in chicken-runs, and being good swimmers and divers, even ducklings afloat are not safe from them. If a pair of ducks have made their nest on an island for safety, rats will swim to it and feast on the eggs, or, should these be hatched, kill the ducklings and eat them. It is more than probable that much of the destruction of pheasant and partridge eggs debited to the account of the Hedgehog, has really been carried out by the Rat. Jordan ("Forest Tithes") says he has known a Rat or Rats take a dozen eggs from a wild duck's nest and bury them in the soft peaty bottom of a moorland runnel, close to the nest. "I traced the whole proceeding and dug the eggs out with my fingers."