THE NATURAL HISTORY OF AILSA CRAIG. 141 



VERTEBRATA. 

 Mammalia. — A "screw-mouse" seems to be pretty well-known 

 on Ailsa, but not having obtained a specimen we cannot say 

 whether it is Sorex vulgaris or S. minutus. Badgers (Meles taxus) 

 to the number of five were put upon the island about the year 

 1876, and the introduction was so far successful that young ones 

 were subsequently seen, 1 but none at all have been observed for 

 several years now. Another name for the Water Cave is the 

 Mermaid's Cave, said to be so-called after the seals (doubtless 

 Phoca vitulind) which frequented it, and which still occur 

 (B. XV. 60). There is no recollection of any stranded cetacean, 

 but " whales " are sometimes seen, and Mr. A. Girvan says that 

 in his frequent passages between Girvan and Ailsa he often 

 observes " buckers," so well-known in Clyde waters (? the white- 

 beaked dolphin, Lage?wrhynchus albiroslris). A porpoise (Pho- 

 ccena communis) was seen by us off the Lighthouse on our last 

 visit. The brown rat (Mus decumanus) unfortunately gained a 

 footing in 1889 (B. VII.) and, although killed in great numbers, 

 still flourishes. They are hard upon the young birds, and the 

 tacksman says that last year (1899) he scarcely saw a young 

 puffin, as the rats killed them all ; they clear off the dead bodies 

 of the birds which used to lie at the base of the cliffs in heaps, 

 those bodies now disappearing far more quickly than they did 

 from natural causes. Rabbits (Lepus cuniculus) were seen by our 

 party, and these have been long known here, as John Monipennie, 

 writing about 1597, says of "Ailsay" . . . "there are many- 

 conies and solayne geese in it" (B. XX. 175). Another intro- 

 duced species, the goat, has inhabited the island for long and 

 breeds freely, as we saw several kids. The herd apparently 

 numbers about fifty, and although roaming at large the animals 

 cannot be called wild. At the same time as the badger experiment, 

 racoons (? species) were also put upon the island, and seem to 

 have survived longer than the badgers, as one was noticed within 

 the last few years by Mr. W. A. Tulloch of the Lighthouse, who 

 also tells us that he has seen a dead mole and young hare on 

 Ailsa. These were, no doubt, carried over by birds as prey from 

 the mainland. 



l J. A. Harvie-Brown's Rarer Animals of Scotland (\$&z), p. 39. 



