The real distinction between the Black (Alexandrine) rat and the Grey (Norwegian) rat is that the Black rat is smaller, has a tail longer than its body (125 per cent.), and long and wide ears, which stand out from the head. The Grey (Norwegian) rat is a larger, heavy-bodied rat, with a tail shorter than its body (90 per cent.), and short ears. Both these rats are common in India, but there is a third kind, which is the commonest of the three in Calcutta, and is probably the one most concerned in the dissemination of plague. It differs in some definite features from both the Black rat and the Grey rat, although it is very much like the latter in general appearance. It is called Nesokia Bengalensis, or Mole-rat. It is a big rat--its tail is only 70 per cent. the length of its body; the pads on the soles of its feet differ from those of the two other rats; its fur is thin and bristly, and when it is put into a cage it erects its bristles and spits! It is, like the Black rat, a stable and granary rat, and makes burrows in which it stores grain. The rats of Calcutta have been carefully studied lately by Dr. Hossack, in consequence of their connection with the bubonic plague. In the older native parts of Calcutta, the Mole rat is twice as common as the Norwegian Grey rat, and the Black rat not so abundant as the latter. In the central European part of the town the Grey rat is commoner than the Mole rat--because, apparently, the better-built houses do not afford such facilities for burrowing. The Black rat is here also by a good deal the most uncommon of the three. All these rats suffer from the plague, die from it, and the fleas which lived in their fur leave them as they get cold, and make their way on to human beings, whom they consequently infect with the plague bacillus. This has now been quite conclusively proved by the Indian doctors charged by Government with the study of the causes of the plague. The plague bacillus--a minute, rod-like organism, which grows in the blood and lymph, once it has effected a lodgment, and there produces deadly poison--was discovered some fourteen years ago, but it is only recently that the plague bacillus has been shown to live in the intestine of the flea, which sucks it up with the blood or other fluids of the rat on which it lives. The flea, which readily goes to man, does not suffer from the plague bacilli which it has gorged, but conveys them to man either by its bite or by its excrement.