AN EXPEDITION TO THE SALVAGE ISLANDS. 409 



feed; baked as our Spanish cook Miguel did them, and served 

 with onions, wild tomatoes, and a little sweet oil, they were truly 

 excellent. Some of these Rabbits were of a light sandy yellow 

 colour, and we made skins of these as well as of the ordinary 

 coloured ones. It is said to be several hundred years since they 

 were introduced, and it seems marvellous to us that they should 

 have thriven so well, and deteriorated so little in size, in such a 

 restricted area, without the intervention of fresh blood. It soon 

 became evident to us that either Bats or some large species of 

 Mouse were numerous towards the top of the island, though we 

 never saw any trace of them about our camp, or on the lower 

 ground, and soon all the traps — smaller cyclone mouse-traps, 

 and large toothless rat-traps — w 7 ere set in likely runs. On visiting 

 these at six o'clock the following morning, we were rewarded by 

 several captures in the cyclones, and in our ignorance fondly 

 imagined that we had found a new species allied to the House 

 Mouse, and having the same small eyes, but altogether a con- 

 siderably larger animal. The under parts were pure white, the 

 back brownish, the ears larger, and the tail thicker than in the 

 Common Mouse ; in fact, the whole animal, had it not been for its 

 small eyes, reminded us strongly of the Wood Mouse (Mus 

 sylvaticus). Mr. Oldfield Thomas, a leading authority on mice, 

 has, however, informed us that the Great Salvage Mouse is the 

 same species as that met with in North Africa. We caught a 

 number of these mice, and brought back a series of beautiful 

 skins. Meanwhile, the rat-traps had done no execution; and, 

 though the flesh with which they were baited was all eaten by 

 the morning, the nocturnal visitors were evidently not heavy 

 enough to start the spring. By setting them very lightly, how- 

 ever, we succeeded in catching two of the mice, but never a rat, 

 and satisfied ourselves that the former were the inhabitants of the 

 rather large burrows, and the only animal of their kind on the 

 Great Salvage. Their droppings were so large that it seemed impos- 

 sible that they could be produced by anything smaller than a rat 

 of some kind, but we ascertained for certain that this was not the 

 case. Further on we shall refer to the wholesale destruction of 

 the White-breasted Petrel (Pelagodroma marina) and their eggs 

 by these comparatively small rodents* 



Our arrival apparently caused immense excitement among the 

 bird inhabitants of Great Salvage, our tent being a special object 



