6 Coward, Some Notes on the Majninals of Lundy. 



Francis Grose, who according to Chanter, described 

 the island in 1775, though the reference is in vol. VI., 

 which was published in 1785 (4), is the first to refer to the 

 Black Rat specifically. " Rats are so numerous here as to 

 be very troublesome ; they are all of the black sort ; the 

 great brown rat which has extirpated this kind all over 

 England, not having yet found its way into the island of 

 Lundy." 



Chanter further tells us, referring to the arrival of the 

 Brown Rat, that " Mr. Heaven, writing this present year " 

 (either 1871 or 1877), "reports them as increasingly 

 numerous, and the black rat nearly extinct. They 

 principally frequent the south end, and Rat Island swarms 

 with them. 1 hey are believed to feed largely on fish, as 

 well as on limpets and other littoral prey. Specimens of 

 a third variety, of a reddish or fox-colour, are sometimes 

 seen and killed. It is called locally the red rat. It has 

 much larger ears, and a longer and thinner tail than the 

 ordinary rat, but in other respects resembles it, and they 



appear to consort together It is scarce, and is but 



rarely captured, but is persistent on the Island." 



Mr. Wollaston (3) mentions the Rats, which he says 

 " grow to an unusually large size, and, not content with a 

 mere tJieoj'etical existence, are amongst the first to make 

 your acquaintance on landing, more particularly if you 

 come, as is perfectly necessary, well laden with provisions." 



At night we frequently heard Rats in the Manor House 

 garden, where we captured two young Brown Rats. We 

 secured eight Black Rats, seven of them in or just outside 

 Mr. Heaven's kitchen gardens, where they had practically 

 ruined his crop of peas and had been feeding on fallen 

 apples and other produce. 



Mr. J. G. Millais (5) divides AIiis rattus, Linn., into 

 three sub-species, geographical races which, when intro- 



