THE BLACK OR SHIP RAT 585 
much less common than the Brown Rat, to Macgillivray; and the 
latter, in 1838, said that “in Keith, which is at a greater distance 
from the coast, it is not very uncommon,” and that it could still 
be procured in other inland towns and villages in Scotland. It was 
stated by Charles St John (W2ld Sports in the Highlands, 76) to 
be extinct in Moray in 1850, although plentiful there twenty years 
before ; the Rev. G. Gordon (Zoologist, 1844, 424) said that it occurred in 
this county in 1844, but he reported it to E. R. Alston as extinct in 
1880. The small colony of black rats observed by Colonel Drummond- 
Hay in 1860, occupying a drain in the vicinity of Pitlochry (Bell, ed. ii., 
303), may have been of the black race of norvegicus (hibernicus), or even 
black water-rats (A. a. vefa). But Millais saw, in 1879, two undoubted 
Black Rats which had just been captured from a small colony dis- 
covered in a shop in Dunkeld. In 1651 it was stated that “a rat 
cannot live in Sutherland.” “There is not a ratt in Sutherland 
.. they die presently how soon they doe smell of the aire of the 
country. But they are in Catteynes, the next adjacent province, 
divyded onlie by a little strype or brook from Sutherland” (//zs¢. 
Earldom of Sutherland, 1813; J. A. Harvie-Browne, zz /z.). In the 
Hebrides it is stated to be still extant on Benbecula (Harvie-Brown 
and Buckley, 36). 
The Black Rat inhabited the Orkneys, where it was known as the Blue 
Rat (J. Wolley, Zoologist, 1849, 2344; J. M. B. Taylor, Ann. Scott. Nat. 
Hist.,1900, 181). Barry (7st. of the Orkney Islands, 1808, 320) says that 
it “was formerly numerous, and as destructive as the rest of the genus ; 
but it has of late been confined to one or two of the islands, owing to 
the Brown Rat, which has almost entirely extirpated them through the 
rest of the country. In size and strength it is inferior to its adversary, 
but not in its disposition to plunder; and when once it has established 
itself in a place, there are no means known of expelling it.” In 1813 
Low (Fauna Orcadensis, 22) stated that it could still be found in South 
Ronaldshay, whence Barrett-Hamilton received one from T. E. Buckley 
in 1892 (Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 1892, 267). W. Evans informs us that 
this colony was still in existence three years ago. 
In the Shetlands, Millais believes that it is frequently killed at 
Lerwick. In 1904 he observed three dead specimens lying on a wharf 
in front of a store on Whalsey ; these were Alexandrines (brown above, 
with grey bellies); Mr Nicholson, the owner of the store, told Millais 
that twenty years before these long-tailed rats were common, but they 
subsequently died out; in 1900 they were reintroduced by a German 
vessel, and they had since become very numerous about his storehouses 
and were a great pest. 
The Black Rat is believed to occur in Scilly, but we have seen 
no specimens. Coward obtained all three sub-species of vrattus, 
VOL. II. 2k 
