THE PEST OF RATS 13 
is left in shocks, especially near drains or other 
rat-harbors, it is likely to be ruined. 
Shortly after the settlement of the Bermudas by 
the British, the colony was infested with rats, which, 
in the space of two years, had increased so alarm- 
ingly that none of the islands were free from them, 
and even fish were taken with rats in their bellies. 
A writer in the Academy recalls some of the horrors 
of this plague of rats. The rats, we are told, had 
nests in almost every tree, and burrowed in most 
places in the ground like rabbits. They devoured 
everything that came in the way—fruits, plants, and 
even trees. Where corn was sown they would come by 
troops in the night and scratch it out of the ground; 
‘nay,’ writes a contemporary chronicler, ‘they so de- 
voured the fruits of the earth that the people were des- 
titute of bread for a year or two.’ Every expedient 
was tried to destroy them. Dogs were trained to hunt 
them, who would kill a score or more in an hour. 
Cats, both wild and tame, were employed in large 
numbers for the same purpose; poisons and traps— 
every man having to set twelve traps—were brought 
into requisition; and even woods were set on fire, to 
help to exterminate them. Every letter written’ at 
this period by the plague-stricken colonists contains 
some .account of the dreadful scourge. ‘Our great 
enemies the rats threaten the subversion of the plan- 
tation,’ writes one colonist in July, 1616. ‘Rats are a 
great judgment of God upon us,’ wrote another a 
year later. ‘At last it pleased God, but by what 
