158 MAMMALS OF BERMUDA. 



Mus irifuscatus, "Wagner, Suppl. Sclireb. Ill, 1843,445." 



Mu8 setosus, "Lund, Bras. Dyr." 



? Mus rattus, var. And. & Bach. N. Ainer. Quad. I, 1849, 191, 194, pi. xxiii. 



Mm americanua, "Lebr., Thes. II, 30; tab. xxix." — Erscleben, Syst. An. I, 1776, 385. — 



Leconte, Pr. A. N. Sc. Phil. VI, 18r.3, 414. 

 Jlat W Amerique, "Brisson, Eeg. An. I, 172." 



The earliest account of this rat, as inhabiting the Bermudas, is about 

 the year 1615 when, from the following instructions sent out by the 

 Bermutla Company in London to Governor Tucker, we infer that it 

 existed there: 



"Wee have sent you yellow ratsbane in fyne powder to kill ratts to 

 be mixed with oatemeale and laid in shells on the ground wesoever they 

 haunt, wch lett not be neglected nor any other meanes to traps snares 

 and whatsoever ellse to sestroye them utterlye yf yt be possible least 

 they mutliplie upon you and devour all yor fruits and plants." 



In Capt. John Smith's History of Virginia it is stated that in the year 

 1618 a vessel laden with grain was wrecked on the reefs, and that num- 

 bers of rats escaped from her and landed on the islands to the great 

 detriment of the plantation. The account is as follows : 



"But the great God of heaven being angry, caused such an increase 

 of silly rats in the space of two years so to abound, before they regarded 

 them, 'that they filled not onely those places where they first were 

 landed, but swimming from place to place, spread themselves into all 

 IDarts of the countrey, insomuch that there was no iland but it was pes- 

 tered with them ; and some fishes have been taken with rats in their 

 bellies, which they caught in swimming from ile to ile; their nests had 

 almost in every tree, and in most places their burrowes in the ground 

 like conies; they spared not the fruits of the plants, or trees, nor the 

 very plants themselves, but ate them up. When they had set their 

 corne, the rats would come by troupes in the night and scratch it out 

 of the ground. If by diligent watch any escaped till it came to earing, 

 it should then very hardly escape them; and they became noysome even 

 to the very persons of men. They vsed all the diligence they could for 

 the destroying of them, nourishing cats both wilde and tame, for that 

 purpose; they vsed ratsbane, and many times set fire on the woods that 

 oft run half a mile before it was extinct euery man was enioyned to set 

 twelve traps, and some of their own accord have set neare an hundred, 

 which they euer visited twice or thrice in a night; they also trained up 

 their dogges to hunt them, wherein they became so expert that a good 

 dog in two or three hours would kill forty or fifty. Many other devices 



