A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 715 



of the woods, to your houses, six, seven, or eight in a company : 

 then it was in every bodie's mouth, that the Cats had destroyed the 

 Rats, and some said that the coldnesse of Winter killed them. I 

 remember indeede that we had a very colde time a little before they 

 were destroyed, which, (I am persuaded) God in mercy did send for 

 the killing of them, nor (as some doe) to the Traps, nor to the ruinat- 

 ing of the Islands with fire ; and take heede that your unthankful- 

 ness bring them not againe, or some other plague as bad." 



Capt. John Smith, in his General History, 1624, gave a detailed 

 account of these rats, compiled chiefly from the works of Butler and 

 Hughes, but with a few additions from other sources.* Among 

 other items he stated that every man was enjoyned to set twelve 

 traps and some set nearly a hundred, which they visited twice each 

 night, and that they used ratsbane, and both cats and dogs in large 

 numbers, setting fire, and various other devices, "but could not 

 prevaile, finding them still increasing against them ; nay they so 

 devoured the fruits of the earth that they were destitute of bread 

 for a year or two." He also discussed the various supposed causes 

 of their sudden death, and objected to the theory that it was due to 

 cold, for he said that "they wanted not the feathers of young birds 

 and chickens which they daily killed, and Palmetto mosse to builde 

 themselves warm nests out of the wind ; as usually they did;f 

 neither doth it appeare that the cold was so mortal to them, seeing 

 they would ordinarily swimme from place to place, and bee very fat 

 even in the midst of winter." He concluded, therefore, that "there 

 was joyned with and besides the ordinary and manifest meanes, a 

 more mediate and secret work of God." 



The real cause of their sudden disappearance, as mentioned above 

 (p. 590) was, in all probability, starvation,^ after they had destroyed 

 all available sources of food, in consequence of their vast increase. 

 This disappearance of food, in the winter, would necessarily cause 

 their sudden death, " all in three or four days," as Mr. Hughes 

 stated. A very few, however, seem to have survived, for they have 



* His account has been copied entire in Lefroy's Memorials, I, and by J. M. 

 Jones, in Bull. 25, U. S. Nat. Mus., p. 158. Therefore. I have not repeated it 

 here, but only give the facts supplementary to the others. 



f In another place he says the nests were built in trees, thus proving that it 

 was the wood -rat. 



X It is curious that their starvation was not thought of as the actual cause of 

 their death, neither by the early writers nor by Jones and others who have dis- 

 cussed this subject in modem times, especially as Hughes and others recog- 

 nized the potency of starvation in the case of the cats and hogs. 



