716 A. E. Verritt — The Bermuda Islands. 



been found there in recent times, in small numbers.* They are now 

 probably kept down to small numbers by the gray rats, which are 

 now common, even in the woods and fields, as we learned by t rap- 

 ping them in 1901. We did not succeed in taking wood-rats, but 

 that may have been because we did not have an opportunity to set 

 traps in the thick swamps, to which they are mainly confined, it is 

 said. But most of the planters, who were questioned, claimed that 

 they had never seen such a rat. Therefore it is probably local and 

 not in an}' large numbers. Matthew Jones, 1884, fully describes the 

 nests found in cedar trees, and sometimes in low bushes in the 

 swamps. He states that they are spherical and about a foot in 

 diameter, lined with soft materials. Mr. Hurdis also mentions find- 

 ing this species in 1850, but says he met with it only once in four- 

 teen years, and never saw the nest. Jones says that they did much 

 damage to the oranges. In 1898, I saw bananas damaged on the 

 trees by rats, as the owners said ; and very likely by this species, 

 though the more common brown rat might also ascend the banana 

 stalks. 



As for the time and mode of introduction of this species, it seems 

 to me impossible to believe that it was first taken there by the 

 frigate, in 1614. This frigate might have had some of these rats on 

 board, but she was more likely to have had the common domestic 

 rats, which ma}' have escaped to the shores and thus gave rise to 

 the notion that the subsequent rat plague was due to them. 



But the vast numbers in which the wood-rat appeared a year or 

 two later (one year according to Butler) cannot by any possibility 

 be explained by the natural increase from any number likely to have 

 been contained in any one ship ; for there must have been tens of 

 thousands of them, and that in spite of the numerous wild and half- 

 wild cats then on the islands. Probably these rats had found their 

 way to the islands at a much earlier period, either by shipwrecked 

 vessels from the West Indies, or by the buccaneers landing there. 

 They may have been introduced at the same time as the wjld hogs. 

 It is also possible that they might have been introduced by the ship- 

 wreck of the Bonaventura, in 1593, for they are such good swimmers 

 that they could easily have reached the land from the wreck at 

 North Rocks. Even in the latter case they would have had 21 

 years to increase before they attracted attention by their numbers. 

 I am more inclined to believe that they were introduced even earlier 

 than that. 



* Butler stated that a very few were left in his time, 1621. 



