190 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



or cunning. After giving the distinctive characters, which are 

 principally taken from the teeth, claws, and hair, and the rings of 

 the tail, he gave a sketch of its history. The Mas decumanus arrived 

 in this country in 1736, and was called the Hanover or Norwegian 

 rat, because it was said by some to have come with George I., and 

 by others from Norway. But in Norway it was certainly an invader, 

 as Linnaeus says it came from Scythia or India, from whence it 

 seems to have come in vast hordes. It soon exterminated the black 

 rat, Mus ratt'US. The latter was tolerably plentiful in Kincardine- 

 shire thirty years ago, but is now extinct. The rats are grain eaters, 

 but will eat almost anything, even taking eggs from under fowls. It 

 has been said by a good authority that the rats destroy the value of 

 one million sterling annually, and that if it were exterminated the 

 saving would keep all the paupers in Scotland. 



By Mr. Alex. Noble. — Mr. Noble read a paper "On the Ferns 

 found in Arran," and exhibited a mounted series of those he had 

 obtained there. The Ceterach and holly ferns are not found there, 

 but nearly all the others are. 



The lists of the Fauna and Flora published by the Society for 

 the British Association were laid on the table. 



3ed October, 1876. 



Mr. W. J. Milligan, Vice-President, in the chair. 



Messrs. Alex. S. Wilson, M.A., B.Sc, and James Lochhead, were 

 elected members of the Society. 



A vote of thanks was given to those gentlemen, members of the 

 Society, who had brought forward such a magnificent collection of 

 flowering plants, ferns, mosses, hepaticse, fungi, lichens, and insects, 

 as was exhibited in the Queen's Kooms on the occasion of the visit 

 of the British Association to this city. If it had not been for the 

 zeal and energy displayed by them, Glasgow would have fallen 

 considerably in the estimation of most of the visitors to the city, and 

 of the public in general. The exhibition was the largest and finest 

 ever brought forward in Glasgow. Nearly every plant, flowering or 

 non-flowering, that has been found in the West of Scotland was to be 

 seen on the various screens placed in the two large halls of the 

 Queen's Rooms. 



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