Chambers notes the belief that there were districts where rats could not live. Hector Boece said there were none in Buchan, and Sir Robert Gordon wrote the same of Sutherland, adding that rats brought in by ship died as soon as they smelt the air, although neighbouring Caithness was full of them. The ministers of Morven and Roseneath in Argyll told the Statistical Account of Scotland that rats had been brought into their parishes in vain. A West India planter was said to have shipped casks of Roseneath earth to Jamaica to kill the rats eating his sugar canes, though it did no good.
No Rats in Sutherland
Printed under 22 July · Sutherland, Buchan and Argyll
Lore and belief
they come thither in ships from other parts, they die presently, how soon they do smell the air of that country.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 103. Read the original
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