Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/414

410 It is by no means certain, however, that these rats had not long existed on the islands, even though an earlier writer—Silvanus Jourdan, says (1610):

The countrey (foreasmuch as I could finde myself, or heare by others) affords no venimous creature or so much as a Rat or a mouse, or any other thing unwholesome.

Whales, which were once of some commercial importance to the islands, are so rare that they are no longer hunted, and the 'whale houses,' of which there were recently half a dozen in existence, are but relics of an industry that has practically ceased.

The greater part of the 150 or more birds mentioned by Major Wedderburn (Jones: 'The Naturalist in Bermuda') as found in the Bermudas, are migrants. The most conspicuous and interesting

of them is the tropic or boatswain bird (Fig. 12), which still continues to nest here, usually on the more remote and inaccessible islands. The only representative of the Amphibia is the great Surinam toad (Bufo agua), which was introduced into Bermuda some twenty-five or thirty years ago by Captain Nathaniel Vesey to combat insect pests. I was fortunate enough during my first visit to the islands to find several of these toads spawning on the morning of April 22. There