ISLET WITHOUT A RAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

ISLET WITHOUT A RAT.

AILSA CRAIG FREE OF PESTS. HOW THE BIRDS WERE SAVED. END OF A GRIM BATTLE. From Darwin's day to our own travellers in far seas have recorded with disgust "the destruction of young terns and seabirds (>y grisly land crabs. Of late we have had something quite as ing in British waters, says a writer iu an English paper. Ailsa Craig, that noble islet which stands as a sea-shouldering sentinel at the mouth of the Clyde, has been for years the scene of horrid carnage, with birds as the victims and rats as tho murderers. The home, from tirno immemorial, of multitudes of garjnets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, puffins, and herring gulls, the islet was invaded some 30 years ago by rats which swam off from a sinking ship. These multiplied, and hordes not only besieged the homes of the families of the men who work the quarries of the Craig, but set up a sustained campaign against the birds. The rodents penetrated the nests in the hillside and there devoured eggs and nestlings. Under these irresistible onslaughts the puffins, which formerly teemed there, so declined in numbers that a year ago very few survived. Here, just in time,

the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds "came to the rescue. It spent £l6O on tho task, and has won a victory worth a hundred times the outlay. A vast numbers of baits were strewed. Many of these were eaten bv the birds and bv domestic animals without the least ill result. But to the rats the preparation was fatal. Society's Good Work. At one time it was difficult to walk abroad at night without treading on scurrying rats; to-day not a rat is to be found on x\ilsa Craig. Following regular runs the vermin had established paths, as sheep do; now those tracks aro overgrown with grass. The homes and property of the islanders are at last secure. But," best of all, the Craig has once again become a sanctuary for the birds of the sea. The great rocky home is re-estab-lished as a nursery where Nature may renew her local stream of bird life and repeople the seas with beautiful forms. It is a fine story, and the society tells it with pride and hope; pride in the achievement, hope that its triumph will induce new friends to come to its aid to enable it carry on its work elsewhere. " But," says the writer, " we need some such body to lead a similar crusade against rats in our towns and villages. ' We have an Act of Parliament which is supposea to compel us to destroy rats and mice. Like many other Acts, this ono is a dead letter. Few people know how to set it in operation, and here is the sort of thing which happens. A lady's house is overrun by rats, though no food is left acces-

Tho Assistant: " Now here's a delightfully gay cretonne . . . what do you say to that? The Customer: "We shouldn't care to say anything—it might answer back." —London Mail

sible to them. They climb a pipe from tho outsido and enter her bathroom, whence they carry thu toilet soap down to the ground floor. They bring in bones from without and choke the chimney of her gas stove. They gnaw pipes and create danger from water and gas. Only Colonising. " The Act is invoked and experts are called in. They charge her £2 lor clearing tho house, then tell her, ' But, madam, these rats are only colonising; their home and nursery are on the premises of your neighbour, and he refuses to let us enter his grounds to get at tho seat of tho mischief.' " That is typical of what is happening overywhero. Ono scrupulous person does his duty; thero is no compulsion upon tho neighbours. So rats increase in numbers and destructiveness, costing us, it is estimated, a million pounds a week in material damage, as well as bringing foul and deadly disoaso into our homes. "We have an Act which, if consistently applied, would exterminate every rat in tho kingdom. It is not applied, and rats grow greater in multitude every day. It lias remained for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to show what really can be done in the matter."