The Rat] OF ORKNEY. 23 



t reduced by shipping ; swarms in the mainland of Orkney ; 

 suffers none else of the genus to remain where it comes. It 

 infests our houses, barns, and storehouses. Our hen-roosts, 

 and rabbit-warrens, are not safe for it. Even man himself, 

 whether alive or dead, can scarce be preserved fiom the at- 

 tacks of this dangerous enemy. The Norway rat is furnish- 

 ed with a set of weapons which render it formidable to crea- 

 tures which have much more strength ; strong legs and sharp 

 claws, which enable it to pierce even walls ; fore-teeth, and 

 muscles of such strength, as nothing but the hardest metals 

 and the solid rocks can resist ; an inch plank is no stop to it; 

 it makes its way through the thickest woodwork in a few 

 hours. No place is safe from them, even the church-yards * 

 and the graves of the dead are broke up by this dreadful in- 

 truder. This species has got such root in the burying-ground 

 of Stromness, that there is no such thing as extirpating them ; 

 the quays of Stromness are full of them ; and in houses every 

 thing eatable is devoured or spoiled by them. A lady some 

 time ago told a story of her having put by in a cask, seven 

 hams of our Orkney swine, and some time after, having occa- 

 sion to use some part of them, found a hole in the cask, and 

 every one of them picked to the bone, with the skin left to 



* This calls to my mind a passage in Keysler's Travels, where he tells us, " that 

 " the bones of dead bodies are a real preservative against several species of ver- 

 ;< min ; and possibly the earth of a church-yard, where great numbers of corpses 

 " are mouldered away, may be effectual against rats." The church-yard of 

 Stromness is, however, a positive exception to this, for there they swarm without 

 any hope of getting them rooted out. Vide Keys. Travels, vol. i.p. 91. 



