A RAT COLONY.
In Hull Bay, the southern portion of Boston Harbour, is Sheep Island, which according to the New York “Journal,” is now uninhabitad by anything but rats. Within the last year they have multiplied so fast that it is commcm to see thirty of them running together on the beach. They are not like common house rats, but arc great, gaunt wharf rats that will put up a good fight with a dog, and make a cat think twice before she tackles one of them. They live almost entirely on clams and other shellfish that abound on the shores of the island. They will tackle a good sized crab, and, in spite of its claws haul it out of its hole. On the south end of the island there are a number of low sumac bushes and blackberry brambles, and in the midst of these the rats have made their nests. As to how they came there, and old fisherman advances the theory that they were brought thither on the Lewiston, a boat used to bring home some of the invalided soldiers after the war with Spain, which was wrecked in the vicinity.
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Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 6 February 1901, Page 4
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195A RAT COLONY. Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 6 February 1901, Page 4
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