300 A. EF. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 712 
In Governor Moore’s report, of 1612, the following occurs: 
“Some sixe days after our coming, | July] we sent out for Hogges, 
so the company which went out brought home some. I hould your 
mutton of England not of so sweet and pleasant a taste.” 
Hughes, in 1614, wrote as follows: 
“Here is no kinde of beasts but hogges and cattes and they but in 
one or two places which are thought to come at first by meanes of 
shippe-wracke. The hogges were manie but are now brought to a 
small number.” 
The wild hogs were probably nearly all exterminated within the 
next two or three years; indeed it is probable that most of them 
were killed in 1614 and 1615, during the partial famines that then 
prevailed among the settlers. Governor Butler, in 1619, wrote that 
there were then “some fewe wild.” Probably many of the wild 
ones were taken alive and kept as domestic hogs. 
But tame hogs were also taken there from England by the early 
settlers, in 1612-16, and increased very rapidly, as soon as corn and 
other food could be provided for them in winter, so that Governor 
Butler, in 1619, said that they were “in great numbers.” Figs were 
used, a little later, to fatten the hogs. (See p. 631.) Hver since 
that time hogs have been abundant. 
b6.—The Plague of Wood Rats. (Mus tectorwm Savi.) See p. 590. 
It was generally believed by the early writers, but without suffi- 
cient reasons, that this very destructive rodent was first brought to 
Bermuda about January, 1614, in the runaway frigate commanded 
by Capt. Daniel Elfred, but the name of the frigate was not given. 
She arrived two months before the “ Blessinge,” and thus relieved 
the famine which then prevailed. 
This was largely due to the fact that the earlier visitors did not 
notice any rats. Thus Silvanus Jourdan, 1610, says: “The countrey 
(foreasmuch as I could finde myself, or heare by others) affords no 
venimous creature or so much as a Rat or a mouse, or any other 
thing unwholesome.” 
But such writers were not likely to have noticed a strictly noctur- 
nal species like this, which at that time was confined to the cedar 
forests. 
Governor Butler, in speaking of this arrival, wrote as follows: 
“But howsoever this runne away frigate brought with her a 
timely and acceptable sacrifice of her meale; yet the companions of 
