Page:A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland - Johnson (1775).djvu/201

 Man is by the use of fire-arms made so much an overmatch for other animals, that in all countries, where they are in use, the wild part of the creation sensibly diminishes. There will probably not be long, either stags or roebucks in the Islands. All the beasts of chase would have been lost long ago in countries well inhabited, had they not been preserved by laws for the pleasure of the rich.

There are in neither rats nor mice, but the weasel is so frequent, that he is heard in houses rattling behind chests or beds, as rats in. They probably owe to his predominance that they have no other vermin; for since the great rat took possession of this part of the world, scarce a ship can touch at any port, but some of his race are left behind. They have within these few years began to infest the isle of, where being left by some trading