With regard to the distribution of the Black Rat in the Western Isles, Messrs.
Harvie-Brown and Buckley1 state: ‘ Mr. Alexander Carmichael informs us that
this species still exists in Benbecula. He says, “ I saw them about our house at
Creagorry several times, and also at Gramsdail, on the opposite side of Benbecula.” ’
In the Orkneys it is said still to exist in South Ronaldshay, where it is
known as the ‘ Blue Rat.’ Low in 18 13 records it from this island in his ‘ Fauna
Orcadensis’ ; and Messrs. Baikie and Heddle in 1848 state that it was still there,
but decreasing fast. The old ‘ Statistical Account ’ 2 * for 1793 says that the
‘ Black Muscovy Rat, which is the only one now to be met with [in Orkney], has
destroyed the Grey or Brown Rat.’ A curious statement indeed.8
Messrs. Buckley and Evans make no mention of the Black Rat in Shetland,
yet I believe it is frequently killed in Lerwick. During a stay in the island of
Whalsey in August 1904 I noticed three rats of , this species lying dead on the
wharf in front of Mr. Nicholson’s store. They were of the variety produced by
the interbreeding of the Alexandrine and the Old English types—brown above
with grey bellies. Mr. Nicholson informs me that about twenty years ago these
long-tailed Rats were common but diediflut. In 1900 they suddenly appeared
again, being brought by a German vessel, and are now exceedingly numerous
about his storehouses, and a great pest.
There is evidence to show that the Black Rat was very numerous in Ireland.
Thompson mentions localities in Cork, Kerry, Armagh, Dublin, and Antrim where
it was resident in his time; and Dr. Harvey4 says it is rare in the northern parts
of the city of Cork. Bell, informed by Dr. Kinahan, says that the Black Rat
used to be found in Dublin, and the species had been recorded from county
Down,5 whilst Captain Barrett-Hamilton says that it is not infrequent in the
neighbourhood of New Ross (Wexford). The same writer has met with it
at Kilmannock, ‘ where it can hardly be called very rare,’ and has heard of it at
Duncannon (Waterford).6 Writing in the seventies in his list of Irish mammals,
Mr. R. M. Barrington considered it rare and local; and Mr. Harting says that a
litter appeared at Levitson, county Kildare, in 1876. It may be said that the
Black Rat is now very rare in Ireland.
H abits.—The general habits of this species are very similar to those of the
more common Brown Rat, whose ways are unfortunately only too well known to
1 A Fauna o f the Outer Hebrides, p. 36. * Vol. vii. p. 546.
8 Mr. T. E. Buckley records the Black Rat from Orkney in 1892 (Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist. 1892, p. 267).
4 Fauna o f Cork, p. 2. 5 Field, March 28, 1874. 6 Zoologist; 1887, p. 425; t888, p. 141.