74 RODENTIA 



Russian, or Norwegian rat, which a good many years ago 

 invaded Tweeddale, to the total extermination of the former 

 black rat inhabitants. Their first appearance was in the 

 minister's glebe at Selkirk, about the year 1776 or 1777, where 

 they were found burrowing in the earth, a propensity which 

 occasioned considerable alarm, lest they should undermine 

 houses. They seemed .to follow the courses of waters and 

 rivulets, and, passing from Selkirk, they were next heard of 

 in the mill of Traquair ; from thence, following up the Tweed, 

 they appeared in the mills of Peebles ; then entering by Lyne 

 Water, they arrived at Flemington-mill, in this parish ; and 

 coming up the Lyne they reached this neighbourhood about 

 the year 1791 or 1792." Neill includes it without remark in 

 his Newhall list (1808). 



BLACK RAT. 



MUS EATTUS L. 



Prior to the invasion of its haunts by Mus decumanus, the 

 Black Rat infested all our towns and villages, and doubtless 

 farm-steadings too. It seems to have been quite unable to 

 live in competition with its more vigorous congener ; and 

 simultaneously with the rapid increase of the one, there took 

 place a corresponding decrease of the other — cause and effect 

 unquestionably — so that, by the early years of the present 

 century, Mus rattus had practically ceased to exist in the 

 coast towns, and a few years more sufficed to carry the exter- 

 mination to its inland haunts as well. At the present time 

 we have no proof of its existence on shore, though it is not 

 improbable that a few now and again attempt to establish 

 themselves in Leith and other ports, seeing they are known 



