The long piles are at once distinguished by their flattened spinous character, which is also slightly the case in M. rattus, though much less conspicuously than in the present species.
"Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon"
Robert A. Sterndale
He was the first to show that Mus rattus, the old English black rat, which is the common house rat of India outside the large seaports, has become, through centuries of contact with the Indian people, a domestic animal like the cat in Britain.
"Concerning Animals and Other Matters"
E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)