NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 103 



The j have since become so wild as to defy capture, and appear to 

 be thriving, but I had no opportunity of seeing them. 



The following weights are supplied to me by Mr. H. Greenwood, 

 who had a shooting in Lewis. He writes — 27th December, 1879, 

 — " Deer here never require artificial feeding. As to weight after 

 ' grulloching' — 



Mr. Greenwood adds — " The horns of these stags, though small, 

 are well formed, and are said to be larger on the east coast, 

 diminishing in size towards the west of Lewis." 



Rodentia. Muridae. 



12. BROWN RAT. 



Mus decumanus (Pall). 



Brown Rats are abundant on most of the islands, and frequent 

 greatly the sea-shore, where they live upon shell-fish and dead 

 things thrown up by the sea, in this way to some extent acting as 

 scavengers. 



Martin tells us that "about 14 years ago a swarm of Rats, but 

 none knows how, came into Rona, and in a short time eat up all 

 the corn in the island."'" From the date of Martin's first edition, 

 this would be about 1689, and from that of the second edition, 

 about 1702. He also tells us that they w^ere very abundant at 

 Rodil, where numbers of cats w^ere employed for the purpose of 

 exterminating them, and after a severe struggle " succeeded so 

 well that they left not one Rat alive." 



Rats in the Hebrides also frequent the inland moors, far from 

 houses, subsisting upon dead sheep, and, doubtless, also to some 

 extent upon birds' eggs. Their burrows may be seen by the sides 

 of the inland lochs and tarns quite commonly ; and they are also 

 found, generally, upon the islands of the Sound of Harris. 



* Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 25. 



