208 RAT 



goods, human beings, and animals, they are equally so, when 

 opportunity serves, to each other, as they prey on one another 

 indiscriminately, especially the unfortunate trapj)ed one, whom 

 they devour entirely, with the exception of the skin and paws, 

 making a very neat job of it. 



Rats, as it is hardly necessary to state, are indeed almost 

 omnivorous, and are, when in stress, frequently found on the sea 

 shores at low tide which they discriminate unerringly, eating the 

 limpets off the rocks. The author found one drowned with its paw 

 under a large limpet and its body twisted up in a crevice whence 

 it had been unable to free itself. Rats detest goats, at any rate 

 they do not infest or even appear in a house where one is ; 

 doubtless the strong smell of the goat is too strong even for 

 them. Special mention of this antipathy is made in the 

 statistical account of the parish of Borthwick, but had been 

 well-known for long in the North and West Highlands. In same 

 statistical account it is stated that rats will not live in Morven, 

 Argyllshire, where goats used to abound, though, at one time, 

 hordes landed from ships then in Loch Aluinn Bay, they dis- 

 appeared entirely in a few years. In the parish of Gairloch a 

 place is named Bealach-na-h-imrich, being a record of the migration 

 of rats from one side of the peninsula to the other. When in a 

 tight corner, rats simulate death in a most imposing manner, 

 equal to the fox or opossum. Rats are said not to be able to live 

 at Roseneath, while in above statistical account they were said 

 not to be in Lismore. Though very cleanly in their own persons, 

 their bite is dangerous and the wound difficult to heal even in the 

 healthiest person, while it is averred that their urine coming 

 into contact with a person's skin causes the flesh to putrefy. 

 The detestation in which they are held has given rise to the 

 Gaelic epithet used to a cordially-hated person of " Garlach," 

 gar or garbh luch, large, great, or coarse mouse. The water-rat or 

 vole, nearly allied to beaver, q.v., was once superstitiously believed 

 to cause the death of any horse feeding on grass cropped by it ; 

 beothach-an-fheoir is one name for it (see Shrew). 



A rat eating or gnawing clothes of a person is said to 

 portend disaster to that person. Cameron, in his Gaelic names 

 for plants, etc., refers to the rat's fern, rainneach-nan-rodainn, 

 so called from its commonness in or near the holes or haunts of 

 rats ; he further says the Gaelic for the tufted vetch is peasair 

 radan, rats' pease, while fuath radan is rat's bane. A rather 

 repulsive cure for erysipelas is given in Folk-lore, from some part 

 of the Hebrides, viz., crushing as young a rat as can be procured 

 in the hands, which gives the power to these hands to effect the 

 said cure by mere contact ever afterwards. 



Rat proverbs are : — 



Buille thall 's a bhos, mar gu 'm bitheadh duine a' marbhadh 

 radain. 



