UC-NRLF B 3 300 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS A SKETCH OF THE NATURAL HISTORY (VERTEBRATES) OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS WITH A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF POPULAR WORKS RELATING TO THE BRITISH FAUNA AND A LIST OF FIELD CLUBS AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM BY F. G. AFLALO, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S. AUTHOR OF 'A SKETCH OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA,' ETC WITH ILLUSTRATIONS WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDGCCXCV1II All Rights reserved 6 PREFACE. IT is a long hark from the wonders of that zoological backwater, Australia, to those more homely curiosi- ties which lie, as Childrey had it, "at your own doors, easily examinable with little travel, less cost, and very little hazard." With works on natural history leaving the press almost every week, it may be deemed worse than futile to add yet another. The more than kindly reception, however, accorded to a slight sketch of the natural history of the Aus- tralian colonies, that I had the temerity to publish last year, has encouraged me beyond the bounds of mere discretion ; and I am so bold as to hope that the same leniency may be extended to a second offence in the shape of a similar attempt to give in small space a plain sketch of the vertebrate fauna of our own islands. That there is up to the present no single volume on the subject may be seen M3G8533 VI PKEFACE. from a perusal of the bibliography given hereafter. Let me endeavour to express the unambitious aim of this little book. It is offered as no more than the merest outline, an introduction to the many excellent handbooks to county fauna enumerated in the bibliography, from which I may perhaps, without incurring the charge of making invidious distinctions, be allowed to indicate as admirable models the series prepared by Messrs Harvie-Brown and Buckley. What these and other county chron- iclers have been able to give in detail, it has been my duty only to outline. The physical peculiari- ties of the various zoological divisions have, except in the introduction, been dealt with but incidentally; those of counties, which in no way conform to the natural boundaries, have been all but ignored. The great difficulty throughout, of course, has been compression ; but it is hoped that, since it has been found impossible to give the whole truth, there has at any rate been included nothing but the truth. It will probably be noticed that slightly different methods of description have been adopted in the several cases of the mammals, birds, and fishes ; but these have been thought to offer the most convenient aid in each case to identification. In short, the object of the following pages is to give some clue to the appearance and life-history of the 700 odd verte- PKEFACE. Vll brates which still, after generations of extermination, protection, and acclimatisation, either reside in or visit these islands. Their anatomy, their synony- mies, and their range outside the British Islands, are all to be found elsewhere. The bibliography and list of field-clubs are added in the hope of assisting all who may desire to supplement the information here given by either reading or correspondence with local experts. Neither is offered as in any way complete ; indeed, unavoidable delays in printing, of which this book is one of many victims, have conspired to prevent my including at least one field- club inaugurated since the list was closed, not to mention a number of later works, such as R. and C. Kearton's attractive book, 'With Nature and a Camera,' and Dr Laver's 'Mammals, Reptiles, and Fishes of Essex.' The Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell has most kindly read the proof-sheets, and to both him and Mr J. E. Harting I am under obli- gation for a number of suggestions made while the book was passing through the press. To Dr Arthur Stradling I am also indebted for much assistance with the notes on reptiles, as well as for two very effective photographs of British snakes. F. G. A. BOURNEMOUTH, December 1897. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY . '. . . . .•*•.* * ' • MAMMALS .... .... 21 LIST OF BRITISH MAMMALS . . . . • • 27 CHAP. I. THE BATS . . . • • • • 31 II. THE INSECTIVORA . ~. 37 III. THE CARNIVORA . . ... . . 46 IV. THE RODENTS . » ' . . V . . . 66 V. THE DEER . '. . "r • •' •, _ VI. THE WHALES AND PORPOISES . . . . . 86 BIRDS . . ... .* ' . '. -.- • • . • 95 LIST OF BRITISH BIRDS . .. . ... . 112 I. THE PERCHING BIRDS . . . . . .132 II. THE SWIFTS, WOODPECKERS, ETC. . ; 189 III. THE OWLS ... . . • • • 205 IV. THE BIRDS OF PREY . . . » : . . . 209 V. THE CORMORANT, SHAG, AND GANNET . . . 219 VI. THE HERONS, BITTERNS, AND STORKS . . . 223 VII. THE FLAMINGO -. . . . •• .• • • ^30 VIII. THE GEESE, SWANS, AND DUCKS . . . • 230 IX. THE DOVES . . . . • ' • • 244 X CONTENTS. X. PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE ...... 246 XI. THE GAME-BIRDS 247 XII. THE RAILS AND CRAKES 256 XIII. THE CRANES AND BUSTARDS ..... 260 XIV. THE WADERS ....... 260 XV. THE TERNS, GULLS, AND SKUAS . . . .276 XVI. THE ALBATROSS, PETRELS, AND SHEARWATERS . 285 XVII. THE GUILLEMOTS, DIVERS, AND GREEKS . . . 288 REPTILES 297 LIST OF BRITISH REPTILES . . . . . .301 I. THE LIZARDS ........ 302 II. THE SNAKES 304 AMPHIBIANS 309 LIST OF BRITISH AMPHIBIANS (AND BATRACHIANS) . . 312 I. THE FROGS AND TOADS . . . . . .313 II. THE NEWTS 315 FISHES 317 LIST OF BRITISH FISHES ....... 326 I. THE PERCHES AND SEA-BREAMS .... 340 II. THE BULLHEADS AND GURNARDS .... 347 III. THE ANGLER-FISH ...... 352 IV. THE WEEVERS . 353 V. THE MACKEREL FAMILY 354 VI. THE CORYPHENES AND THEIR ALLIES . . . 358 VII. THE HORSE-MACKERELS AND THEIR ALLIES . . 359 VIII. THE GARFISH AND FLYING-FISH . . . .364 IX. THE GOBIES AND SUCKERS 365 X. THE BLENNIES AND BAND-FISHES .... 369 XI. THE ATHERINES AND GREY MULLETS . . . 372 XII. THE STICKLEBACKS . . . . . .374 XIII. THE WRASSES 375 CONTENTS. XI XIV. THE COD FAMILY 377 XV. THE SAND-EELS AND ALLIED FORMS . -. . 384 XVI. THE FLAT-FISH . . . . . •- . • 386 XVII. THE EELS ......«• 394 XVIII. THE HERRING FAMILY . . . . . . 396 XIX. THE CARP FAMILY . . . , . . • 400 XX. THE SALMON FAMILY . *• . . . . . 408 XXI. THE PIKE . . ... . . . 414 XXII. THE PIPE-FISHES . . . . , . . . 415 XXIII. THE' FILE-FISHES . . . . -.- . . 417 XXIV. THE ARCTIC CHIMERA . . . . . ' . 418 XXV. THE STURGEON . '" . . . . .. . 418 XXVI. THE SHARKS AND RAYS , . . . . 419 THE LOWEST VERTEBRATES ... . .435 APPENDIX I. MATERIALS FOR A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS ON THE BRITISH VERTEBRATE FAUNA . . 441 ii II. A LIST OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES AND FIELD-CLUBS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, WITH THEIR SECRETARIES 460 INDEX. 469 ILLUSTRATIONS, FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. OTTEES ON THE BROADS RED GROUSE ADDER . . . SALMON SWIMMING Frontispiece To face p. 97 299 319 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. MAMMALS. HEDGEHOG PAGE . 37 BIRDS. MISTLE-THRUSH PAGE . 133 MOLE . . . v . . 40 NIGHTINGALE . . 141 COMMON SHREW . 44 DIPPER . , . 149 FOX . " . . 48 BEARDED REEDLING . . 150 MARTEN . . 52 NUTHATCH . 154 STOAT . .'...' 54 TREE-CREEPER . . 156 BADGER . ; . 57 WHITE WAGTAIL . 158 SEAL . . . . 64 GOLDEN ORIOLE . 162 SQUIRREL. . - , 67 RED-BACKED SHRIKE . . 163 DORMOUSE . 70 CHAFFINCH . 173 MOUNTAIN HARE . 79 CROSSBILL . . . . 176 RED-DEER . 83 MAGPIE . . 184 XIV ILLUSTRATIONS. JAY ..... 186 REPTILES. SWIFT .... 190 RINGED SNAKE . . 307 NIGHTJAR 192 FISHES. GREEN WOODPECKER . 196 PERCH . 340 KINGFISHER 198 BASS . 341 CUCKOO .... 202 RED MULLET . . 344 LONG-EARED OWL 207 MACKEREL . 354 GOLDEN EAGLE . 212 JOHN DORY 362 PEREGRINE 215 GARFISH . . 364 OSPREY .... 218 GREY MULLET . . 373 CORMORANT 220 COD .... . 377 GANNET . . . . 222 POLLACK . . 380 HERON .... 224 TURBOT . . 388 BITTERN .... 227 PLAICE . 390 MALLARD . . . • . 236 CARP . 401 RED-BREASTED MERGANSER 243 BARBEL . . 402 CAPERCAILZIE . 251 ROACH . 403 BLACK GROUSE . 253 CHUB . 404 COOT .... 259 TENCH . 406 LAPWING .... 264 TROUT . 411 WOODCOCK 267 PIKE . 415 KITTIWAKE 283 BLUE SHARK . 421 GUILLEMOT 290 SPUR-DOG . 427 GREAT CRESTED GREBE 293 THORNBACK . 430 MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS at page 1 * * A SKETCH OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. INTRODUCTORY. IT was a fancy of Richard Jefferies,1 and one which, with- out being pushed beyond certain limits, had in it many ele- ments of truth, that the British Islands afforded the student of animal distribution an epitome of the greater world with- out. Quite apart from the poverty of our fauna in the mere number of species, it is significant that of the eleven recognised orders of quadrupeds, five only are wanting ; of the twenty-three living orders of birds, our list includes, if we count the stragglers, examples of no fewer than seventeen; of the fishes, of which science recognises five existing orders, our seas, streams, and lakes provide in greater or less abundance typical representatives of three. There is. however, with the exception of the restricted distribution of one bird (the red grouse) and about half- a-dozen non-migratory varieties of the trout and char, nothing actually peculiar about the vertebrate fauna of this archipelago anchored off the north-west coast of the European continent, a group consisting of two principal islands and several thousand islets, some of them mere rocks. Thus, in the Scilly Islands alone there must be i Life of the Fields. A 2 INTRODUCTORY. nearly one hundred and fifty such rocks, and in the Orkneys there are sixty-seven. The area of the islands under consideration is, for all practical purposes, about 120,000 square miles, of which England and Wales, with their islands, are roughly the one half, or rather less, while Scotland and Ireland, with their islands, are roughly the other half, or rather more. The coast-line is proportionately enormous — probably, if we take into con- sideration all the deep inlets on the west coasts of both Great Britain and Ireland, not far short of 10,000 miles. This will be better appreciated when we recollect that of Ireland it has been said that no inland town is more than fifty miles from salt water, or when we compare our coast- line with the 8000 miles of coast-line in Australia to 3,000,000 square miles of area. Of these 120,000 square miles it should, however, be remembered that, at the lowest possible computation, one-third at the least is composed of mountain, bog, and moor — wild nature, in fact ; while of the 50,000,000 acres that approximately remain, little more than 35,000,000 are in all probability under cultivation, three-quarters under grass, the rest under oats and other crops. Market-gardening and the cultivation of orchards usually occupy attention on the outskirts of our larger towns. Space will not admit of dwelling at greater length on these important considerations as factors in the animal life of different parts of the country : it must suffice to leave them with this bare enumeration. A few words must now be said on the subject of our climate. It is customary to speak of this in terms of de- rision, and without a doubt it is subject to ex- traordinary and unlooked-for developments of such a nature as to interfere seriously with private arrange- ments for outdoor excursions. Climate is not, however, measured by considerations of this kind. As a matter of fact, these islands enjoy, thanks to the surrounding water, the genial influence of the Gulf Stream, and the prevalence INTRODUCTORY. 3 of south-west winds surcharged with moisture, a climate in many respects unique, certainly more temperate by far than that of any other, taking it all the year round. Of the great changes that have of necessity passed over these islands, then mainland, since the days when elephants crashed through vast forests long since turned to coal, while the hippopotamus basked in our streams, the huge moose browsed on the forest-trees of Ireland, and graceful palms and tree-ferns waved over the northern lochs, there is here no need to speak. It is sufficient to note that Great Britain is to-day the summer resort of tropical birds, the winter-quarters of Polar waterfowl, all repairing hither, year after year, those to reproduce their kind, these to enjoy the food denied them in their natural home. So, too, people who have resided in lands where the annual extremes of mean temperature lie 150° apart, where even day and night show a difference of 75°, learn with the birds to appreciate the much-abused British climate. As might, however, be expected, there are not inconsiderable varia- tions within the limits of these islands, the damp south- west of England, and, still more, the rainy west of Ireland, contrasting unmistakably with the drier eastern counties, which, hotter in summer and colder in winter, possess a climate far more closely approaching that of the Continent. In addition to the chief islands of the group — to wit, Great Britain and Ireland — there are a dozen other groups of special interest to the naturalist, the Orkneys, Shet- lands, Inner and Outer Hebrides, St Kilda, the Bass Hock, the Fame Islands, the Channel Islands, the Scillies, Eockyll, Lundy Island, the Isle of Wight, the Duke of Buccleuch's gull-preserve on Walney Island, and, lastly, the Isle of Man. Heligoland now lies, politically if not zoologically, outside the region ; but all who are interested in its capabilities as an observatory for the study of bird-migration will find an excellent account in the late Dr Gaetke's book,1 a transla- tion of which has appeared in the English language. 1 Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory. 4 INTRODUCTORY. As little more has been attempted in the, following pages than to treat the British Islands as one'izoological area, it seems desirable to say a word in this place of the subdivi- sions that might, in a more pretentious contribution to the literature of their fauna, have been followed. These are two, the zoological and the political. Of the former, examples are found in the fens, moors, and forests ; the latter are of course the counties, and may reas, co i- ^Q easjjv dismissed, since they in no way corre- spond with the zoological divisions. With the great Australian colonies the case was, and is, different. Their boundaries are, for the most part, natural, a lofty range, a broad river, a deep strait ; and, as might be expected, corresponding differences are to be observed in their animal life, as, for instance, where the diamond- snake of New South Wales is replaced in the other colonies by that species, sub-species, or variety, the carpet-snake. In England, however, we are confronted with few such natural boundaries. The task of detailing the physical peculiarities of each and every county — its soil, its hills and valleys, its water-courses, moors, marshes, and forests — has devolved upon the authors of those handbooks to county fauna, par- ticulars of which will be found in the bibliography. It would, no doubt, have been easy to gather from my own notes, easier still to have compiled from the works in question, supplemented by the Ordnance Survey maps, some account of most shires in the kingdom. To take an example. Sussex might have been contrasted with low, sandy, pine- clad Hampshire on the one hand, and high, chalky, hop- growing Kent on the other ; and some account must have been taken of its three or four mentionable rivers, its four harbours, the 5oo-feet fall of Beachy Head, the low- lands near Pevensey and Pagham, the great oak-woods scattered over the western half of the county, and the beeches of Charlton and Goodwood. I have my own ideas, however, of the function of the present sketch, an introduc- tion or supplement, not a substitute, and I have therefore INTRODUCTORY. 5 abstained from including such detail as is given else- where at far greater length than I could spare in these pages. Coming for a moment to the zoological divisions, which are of considerably greater interest and importance, ±he task of establishing fixed rules whereby field- Zoologica naturalists learn to associate peculiar types of divisions. . • i • i animals with certain physical conditions opens up a wealth of fascinating study, and still more fascinating, because more daring, deduction. Let us take an example in the birds and fishes found to frequent rocky or sandy coasts. In either class we find well-marked distinctions. Thus, the ornithologist knows that he will find on a bold rocky coast, like, say, that of Cornwall, such fowl as puffins, guillemots, cormorants, and gannets, birds that find their food in deep water, the majority by diving; whereas on the low sandy shore of Essex, on the other hand, he will look for long-legged wading dotterels and sandpipers, all of which seek their molluscan and insect food in the shallows. Nor is the contrast in the legs of the birds in these two groups more striking than that afforded by their bills, the waders being armed with long slender bills that they can thrust into the mud, the divers having short stout bills, usually hooked, to assist in the capture of the slippery fish on which they feed. In like manner, the student of fish knows well enough that along with the puffins and their kind he will find conger, pollack, and wrasse ; with the waders, flat fish and whiting. These principles admit of almost infinite extension, and if an occasional exception to the rule should be sprung upon the investigator — and it must be confessed that Nature holds some strange surprises in store for those who are so bold as to pry into her secrets — he will, after the first shock has worn off, cheerfully accept it as. the one thing necessary to prove the rule he has laboured so hard to establish. Thus, he will look for certain types in each district, the 6 INTRODUCTORY. ruff and reedling among the least drained parts of the fens and the quieter retreats of the broads ; the grouse, short- eared owl and harrier on the bleak moors; , 7^1C the mountain-hare and ptarmigan among the hills and stony plateaux of the Highlands of Scotland ; and the woodcock, snipe, and quail on the edge of the peat-bogs of Ireland. The student of birds will recognise — nay, expect — that a certain influence should be exerted on their course in migration by headlands that bid the weary rest, and muddy estuaries that stay those that hunger. Indeed, one estuary or one promontory is not to him as another, and he will not deem as of slight moment the difference between the chalk of Shakespeare Cliff or Beachy Head and the shingle of Dungeness. He will notice, too, that the mountains of Ireland fringe the coast, leaving the interior, by comparison, lowland. All these matters appeal so differently to the casual reader and to him who takes an interest in them. How Fauna of many would find food for reflection in the pecu- Lsle of liarities of the denizens of the Isle of Wight ? Wight. Y^ it js surely not quite devoid of interest that in that little outpost of England, separated from the New Forest1 and the most fishful rivers in the south country by a mere ditch, the woods should afford shel- ter to but few owls and woodpeckers, the streams hold neither pike, nor perch, nor chub, nor gudgeon ; that the ring -ousel should abstain from breeding there; that the toad should be commoner than the frog, the viper in excess of the more harmless snake. To the few, however, the bare enumeration of such facts as the impossibility of inducing certain birds to take kindly to island or even mainland districts, offering to all appear- ance the identical conditions of their not far-distant home, 1 It must be admitted that, save for Mr Witherby and others blest with exceptional opportunities for exploring it, this most attractive of our forests is not an ideal bird-resort. I recollect Mr Lascelles attrib- uting this to lack of suitable food. INTRODUCTORY. 7 the quest of the whys and the wherefores which Nature is often so reluctant to answer, discloses a prospect of en- grossing research. As a homely example of how little such reasons are understood, a lady was deploring to me a short while ago that the stupid nightingales, which were in such abundance just then round Christchurch, not more than Nightingale nve miles distant, would not sing of an even- in Hamp- ing within earshot of her house, a short way shire. ouj. Of Bournemouth. I endeavoured to ex- plain that their preference for Christchurch, or, for that matter, for Parkstone, equally close in the opposite direc- tion, might lie in the presence of retreating waters and muddy banks that possibly furnished them, in addition to their staple caterpillars, with some kind of soft food, whereas the Bournemouth valley, lying between, was, on account of a deficiency in this respect, passed by. This explanation contented the lady, who seemed quite recon- ciled to the absence of nightingales as soon as she was able to realise that it did not arise from mere lack of judg- ment on their part.1 A book that should do no more than collect a number of such cases in the apparently capricious distribution of some of our resident and visiting birds would, I am convinced, command a large audience. Frankly, however, that is not among the objects of this book, in which, as already set forth, the British Islands are dealt with almost as one area. Adhere to this plan, how- ever, as we will, it is impossible to ignore two interesting pictures, a comparison and a contrast, that constantly recur during our studies of British vertebrates, and these are the strong resemblance between our fauna and that of neigh- bouring Continental countries, and the still more remark- able deficiencies in the Irish list. The former points unquestionably to the union, at no 1 I think it right to mention that both Sir Herbert Maxwell and Mr Harting take exception to my explanation of the distribution of nightingales around Bournemouth, but I prefer letting the suggestion stand, for want of a better. 8 INTRODUCTORY. very remote zoological date, of these islands and the north- west coast of Europe. The latter — examples of which are found in the wild cat, polecat, weasel,1 fauna roebuck, mole, dormouse, harvest mouse, two shrews, voles, and snakes — would appear to indicate the earlier isolation of the western island. Or, as A. R. Wallace puts it : " This may be accounted for by the smaller and less varied surface of the latter island ; and it may also be partly due to the great extent of low- land, so that a very small depression would reduce it to the condition of a cluster of small islands capable of supporting a very limited amount of animal life."2 Of the above Irish absentees, the mole, which occurs in abundance as far west in these islands as Holyhead, is in one respect the most interesting, since there are, in spite of its never having occurred in the island, several old Celtic names for it. There are also Celtic names for the roebuck (Earbog\ but that animal, though not indigenous, has been introduced on private estates. Mr Harting, of whom I once asked an explanation of this, suggested that my so-called Celtic names for the mole may possibly have been introduced by immigrants from Scotland, who would have known the creature in their own country. This explanation, which is probably the correct one, brings me to the consideration of the present confusion in the local names of beasts and birds. Together with the subordination of county distribution above alluded to, I have found it necessary to pay but little attention to such provincial vernacular, names ^s regar(is the birds, at any rate, whole volumes have been devoted to the subject. Moreover, in these days of cheap and easy railway travel, great inducements are offered to young keepers to better their condition elsewhere, and these men carry into the new home the names they have used from childhood, so 1 The weasel has been freely claimed as an Irish quadruped (see p. 55). 3 Geographical Distribution of Animals, i. 197. INTRODUCTORY. that we find nowadays that such creatures at any rate as come within the ken of these gentry, " vermin " and the like, are very often called by the same name in counties far apart and with vastly different dialects. This, while it tends in course of time to simplify matters and facilitate intercourse, detracts vastly from the interest, philological or otherwise, of these same local names. I come for a moment to what is perhaps the most inter- esting aspect of the contemplation of any country's fauna, the comparison of its condition at the present mammals ^av w^h what it was five-and-twenty, fifty, or five hundred years ago. In the case of most British mammals, this comparison becomes doubly inter- esting in view of the impossibility, on account of their isolation, and leaving out of account private efforts towards reintroduction, of the reappearance of any species that has once become extinct. In Continental countries, whatever the practical probabilities and improbabilities may be, this impossibility has, theoretically at any rate, little force. To us, however, the boar and bear, the wolf, beaver, and rein- deer, can of their own accord never more return. To our islands they are as dead as are the rhytina 1 and great auk to all the world. Polar bears may occasionally be sighted, from the bridge of some transatlantic steamer, drifting on ice-floes far south of their natural range ; but it will require a miracle indeed to restore these vanished Britons. Ac- cording to Mr Harting,2 the last British bear died in the ninth century ; the last boar in the seventeenth century ; the last wolf in Ireland was killed as late as the middle of the eighteenth century ; the last beaver and reindeer had gone about the twelfth century. In like manner, the last survivor of the old native stock of bustards was bagged in 1829, though this striking bird has visited these islands 1 For the causes of extinction of the rhytina, more commonly known as Steller's sea-cow, see an interesting article in the ' American Natu- ralist ' for December 1887. 2 Extinct British Animals. 10 INTRODUCTORY. on many occasions since, notably when its Continental haunts were shaken by the cannon of 1870-71 ; and a hen bustard met the usual fate, if I remember rightly, only two or three years ago. So too, we are told, the old stock of capercailzie died out in the middle of the eighteenth century, to be reintroduced over fifty years later by Lord Fyfe and Sir T. Fowell Buxton. These lost islanders, a fuller list of which will be found in the interesting chapter on paleontology in Lydekker's volume on ' British Mam- mals,' l will, there seems reason for supposing, be joined at no remote future by the polecat, wild cat, marten, and black rat, among quadrupeds, and by the ruff and bearded reedling, bittern and chough, among birds. These recent changes would seem, with the exceptions of the vanishing black rat and chough, to be the work of man, the direct outcome of his improvements on the face of the earth. The discomfiture of the two exceptions seems to have been rather the work of their own kindred. It is the order of things that the children of man shall increase and supplant the wilder children of nature. The transformation that is being achieved under the eyes of the present generation in other continents more recently exploited has long since reached the climax in these islands. Gone are the vast herds of mixed game that but yesterday roamed the African veldt, evoking the admi- ration of even such hunters as Cornwallis Harris and Gordon-Gumming ; gone too are the great herds of bison that, within the memory indeed of Mr Koosevelt and other living American sportsmen, thundered over the boundless prairies. Populous capitals stand on land just reclaimed from the kangaroo and dingo; and I have occupied quarters on the outskirts of Buitenzoorg, in Java, where a few years ago tigers prowled among the affrighted villagers, but where nowadays one can lie at ease in the cool verandah and imagine oneself in the respectable security of a London suburb. These changes are not all matter for rejoicing, 1 Allen's Naturalist's Library. INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 but they are inevitable. There is not room for the children of man and the children of nature ; and as the former have called in the rifle to help them, the latter must soon dis- appear, with the exception of those which man may, for purposes of his own, choose to domesticate and keep about him. The larger beasts will inevitably go first, nor will those that are swift of foot necessarily survive the longest, for difficulty is as essential to the pursuit of sport as danger, and the hunter is far more attracted by the flying herds of antelope and deer than by the sluggish hippopotamus or crocodile. That something of this may be due to the con- sideration of the trophy, it would be impossible to deny ; but the readiness of the beasts to escape must, as in the case of the fox and hare, have aroused the instinct of pursuit. Man is not, after all, unlike his favourite dog, which will invariably run after those who show the in- clination to run away. In these islands, the process has been slower than abroad. For one thing, the weapons were less precise and less far-reaching. All our larger quad- rupeds were, as will be at once seen from a glance at the above dates, exterminated long before the use of firearms had become general. In the remote Highlands of Scotland, or in equally wild districts in this country and Ireland, a very few may have lingered to meet their death by gunpowder, but the chief work of destruction was achieved with the arrow and the spear. More recently, however, the extermination of many of our most interesting beasts and birds has been furthered by means less direct than the gun and snare. These have of course played their part, and the gamekeeper and farmer have doubtless much to answer for. It is, in any case, useless to bring a general indictment against gamekeepers : on the part of any but their employers, it is not far from an impertinence. The ignorance and destructiveness and wanton cruelty of this class are themes which, to my way of thinking at least, are worn threadbare. That there are 12 INTRODUCTORY. offenders among them, as among any other class, is not improbable ; but, whether or not their attitude towards the beasts and birds of prey is always a judicious one, it is surely within the bounds of possibility that they are acting, according to their lights, conscien- ygame- tiously and, as they think, in their masters' interests. It is possible even that the conduct of keepers as a class may in this respect be open to some fair criticism; but it is, I think, impossible that their prejudices, the growth of generations of close touch with Nature, whom they learn to know more intimately than any other class of men except, perhaps, the poachers, can be utterly without foundation. I, for one, should be re- luctant to pin my faith unconditionally to the teachings of the class-room as opposed to such downright assertions as are, for example, to be found in Speedy's 'Sport in the Highlands.' Nor may we hope in a little while to soften the still more merciless creed of the farmer. Jesse told him that he would find the rook following the By farmers. ploughshare and not the sower ; but such an assurance would, even if beyond denial, appeal with little force to men whose finer perceptions of these matters are pardonably blunted by the bitterness of succeeding years of depression, and who, in their despair, are not unnaturally prepared to lay the mischief at any door but the right one.1 There are others engaged in this work of slaughter, some of them with less excuse. There are the bird-catcher and the naturalist - collector. The former catchers empties all the music of Surrey into the purlieus of Little St Andrew Street — and small blame to him : it is his living. The latter commits his depredations in the cause of science ; and these, indeed, sometimes almost pass belief. They are scarcely less shocking than the evils perpetrated in the name of re- 1 When ladies disagree, indeed, as they have in the recent sparrow controversy between Miss Ormerod and Miss Carrington, the farmers may well keep their own counsels. INTRODUCTORY. 13 ligion. As an instance, the late Mr Seebohm, whose four volumes are the delight of all who care to read about our birds, owns in one place to having robbed in one day upwards of 450 eggj (not, be it remarked, in these islands), including nearly 150 of one species and over 80 of another. In another account he mentions 250 eggs of the lesser tern as the gleaning of one week. After these confessions, it is surely intended for humour when he complains at yet another page of the "hard-hearted" peasants of Siberia, who habitually take quantities of these eggs for food. Worse than all these is the wanton pot-hunter, who, without any rational interest in game, crops, or science, loafs abroad at all times and blazes at any oriole, hawk, or other bird that may chance to cross his path. Boys are among the worst offenders, and it is not without regret that one finds the editor of an excellent school magazine delivering himself thus : "School arrangements may limit them, irate farmers and keepers may rage, and Acts of Parliament thunder, but eggs and bugs will still be sought and acquired wherever there be boys." That our four-footed animals have not by such means been long since reduced to the level of those of New Zealand, that our song-birds are not as scarce as on the great plains of Italy,1 is owing less to any measures taken for their protection than to the sacred rights of ownership in land, against which the lover of nature is not likely, whatever his politics, to raise his voice. But the museum-men ! As Huskin says of the birds : " One kills them, the other writes classifying epitaphs." As above remarked, however, it is by less direct means that our mammalian and bird fauna has become gradually impoverished, not alone in variety, but rather in actual num- bers. Here and there, perhaps, the keeper's gun may have told. We learn, for instance, that in parts of the North 1 In the ' Times ' of July 10 of the present year (1897) appeared a letter from a lady deploring the well-known spoliation of Italian wild birds for the London table ! 14 INTRODUCTORY. Country he has practically exterminated the jay and magpie.1 The buzzard, kite, and hen-harrier have likewise in many parts of these islands been driven to the verge of extinction. But it is by cultivation and draining, the latter more especially, that our smaller birds have been most power- By draining ^ty affected. The reclaiming of carseland and cultiva- has been the death - warrant of the bittern tion- and ruff, of the bearded reedling and Savi's warbler. The Scots cut down their great forests in olden time to rid them of the wolf, and with it they lost the capercaillie. One of the most remarkable and sudden of recent changes in the face of a country is to be found in some of the Channel Islands, where, since gin took the place of cider as the national beverage, the orchards have been abandoned, and the whole country is under vegetables for the early London market.2 The effect of such a transformation on the number of the migratory species that formerly stayed to breed in those islands can scarcely be overestimated. The draining of the fens, with the accompanying cutting down of the dense reeds that had for all time afforded shelter and nesting-sites to many fen-birds, has perhaps been the most important factor of all. The actual spread of bricks and mortar, though doubtless a condition to be reckoned with, is not of such paramount importance as might at first sight appear. In the first place, there must always be very large tracts which, it is fair to suppose, will not, for a very long time at any rate, be built over. Marvellously as the population of these islands has increased during the past century, having already passed that of France, a country of considerably more than half again the area, it is to be remarked that the tendency has been to crowd more closely into those centres of population which were cities and towns at the beginning of the century, in many 1 Muirhead, Birds of Berwickshire, pp. 200, 202. 2 Smith, Birds of Guernsey, vol. viii. INTRODUCTORY. 15 cases within almost the old limits, rather than to start new townships in waste parts of the country. If a new town does now and again spring up, it is certain to be a watering-place, the mushroom rise of which is not in- frequently followed by sudden decay. As an instance of this, I may cite Southbourne-on-Sea, a new speculation which was, we were told a very few years ago, to rival Bournemouth and eclipse Boscombe ; but the venture has to all appearance come to nothing, and the whimbrel and dotterel and redshank are left in possession of the sand- flats below Christchurch, laying their eggs peacefully on the sands and shingle which should, in the fertile imagina- tion of investors, have been thronged ere now with chil- dren and nursemaids. Thus rapidly does Nature reclaim her own. Secondly, it is notorious that a large number of beasts and birds, so far from shunning his presence, follow man into new districts. But man not only exterminates, both directly and in- directly; he also acclimatises and protects. It is not so easy as might be expected, when sketching the fauna of a highly civilised country like ours, to draw the tisation. ^ne strictty between the indigenous and the imported. In the case of Australia, the dis- tinction was far simpler, the placental dingo presenting the only difficulty. As for the horse, cattle, sheep, and dog, the camels, oxen, buffaloes, poultry, and the like, all these had obviously no place among the rightful owners of that remarkable island. With us, however, it is different. The palpably domesticated animals are easily reckoned with. The horse, ass, goat, sheep, dog, cat, hog, poultry, guinea-pig, and foreign cage-birds — these are ignored in the following pages, as also the semi-domesticated remnant of our wild oxen. But what shall be said of our fallow- deer, pheasants, capercailzie, red-legged partridge, edible frog, and carp ? or who would have the courage to omit all notice of these from an account, however slight, of our natural history 1 This tinkering of an impoverished fauna 16 INTRODUCTORY. has indeed gone on for so many years, that it is hard to know where to begin and where to leave off. The case of both our rats, the black and the larger brown, misnamed Norway or Hanoverian, illustrates the difficulty. We have, by contrast with the more recent introduction of the latter, come to regard the weaker species as a much older resident of these islands, which, in point of fact, he is. But this has become so strong in the minds of some, that a recent writer on the subject of ferrets alluded to the black rat as " the oldest inhabitant of this country," and this too when it was introduced from the East in all probability not earlier than the fourteenth century ! Thus, in addition to the species introduced by man, the classification is complicated by others that have arrived in ships or otherwise, but not under his auspices. This is a difficulty which it is im- portant to grasp, because we shall more than once be con- fronted by it in the following pages. To make this still clearer, I will give one instance. It will be observed that I have, contrary to the usual practice, omitted the turtles from the list of British vertebrates. I think I should scarcely have ventured, on my own respon- sibility, to do so, had it not been for a trivial episode that I shall relate as my justification. My ship was nearing the end of a long voyage. We had covered 15,000 miles of sea, and had brought successfully through every degree of climate, from a tropical summer to a British winter, two leather-back turtles, which were allotted private quarters in the long-boat, and played on with the hose under my supervision twice a-day. Thus they thrived exceedingly, until, not a hundred miles south-west of the Eddystone, one got washed overboard. The captain, to whom they had been tendered as an advance Christmas gift by pne of the Company's agents, raved and stormed in language suitable to the occasion ; but my own regret at his discomfiture was largely tempered by curiosity as to whether the creature might perchance get washed ashore alive, in which case nothing would, if we may INTRODUCTORY. 1 7 judge by the analogy of some of the British-North-Ameri- can birds that figure in our list, have prevented its being temporarily recorded as a British turtle. I do not, be it understood, take upon myself for one moment the re- sponsibility of criticising the validity of examples pre- viously recorded. I prefer relating what did happen, and suggesting what might have happened but that, fortunately for British zoology, the precious morsel was evidently carried away into the broad Atlantic by wester- ing currents, and thus lost to our fauna. I hope it is unnecessary to add that I fully intended, perhaps after duly enjoying the humour of the situation, to set matters right. This is why I have ignored the turtles ; and if I had only the evidence of my own eyes, my own opinion is that the bird-list might in like manner have been con- siderably curtailed, as I fancy that if the spars and sheets of the Atlantic liners bound for Liverpool could speak, they might tell strange tales of stowaway birds.1 Nor have the factors that have united to make our fauna what it is been quite exhausted in the foregoing remarks, for it would be impossible to overestimate the effects of protection. Man has not only exterminated, or in some cases kept under, indigenous beasts Protection. , , . , , , , . , , , , and birds; not only has ne introduced and acclimatised foreign species; but he has also, almost en- tirely for sporting purposes, extended his protection to both beasts and birds that would otherwise have disappeared long since from our countryside. Such are the fox, hare, otter, red- and roe-deer, and grouse, which were at any rate among the early inhabitants of these islands. The fallow-deer, as also the various breeds of pheasants, come under another category, for they were introduced, and not indigenous. It has been shown that the preservation of 1 A turtle of very large dimensions has at various times during the past summer (1897) been sighted — and more than once harpooned — oft' the Cornish coast. I have reason to believe that it is still at large iu those waters. B 18 INTRODUCTORY. game is responsible for a deal of destruction ; but it should not be forgotten that it is at the same time acting in an opposite direction, and that, but for the landowner and preserver, our country rambles would never be en- livened with the sight of the passing fox or flying deer, our meditations never broken by the sudden whir of the grouse or the soft splash of the otter. For the lat- ter, although undoubtedly much harassed by the riparian owner, would perhaps have been exterminated were it not that many an owner of a trout-stream has a soft corner in his heart for an occasional day with the otter-hounds. It would seem, indeed, as if the best chance of survival lies, anomalous as it may appear, in being prized for the chase ; and it may well be asked, Where will the wild cat and marten be in another fifty years unless some kindly soul discovers, ere it be too late, that there is legitimate sport to be had out of them ? This will be a more laudable venture than the more ambitious, though less successful, efforts which are from time to time directed towards the reintroduction of the beaver and boar, or the acclimatisation of zebus and musk-rat. There will always be this about the study of natural history in these islands, though to many it will appear but a poor recommendation, that it may be pursued with- out risk, from either climate or the creatures themselves. Our climate, subject though it is to sudden changes, is neither too hot nor too cold to put a stop to field natural history throughout the year. In this we are singularly blest, for there are few other lands of which as much could be said. Even on those portions of the Continent that lie at our door there are, as more than one ill-fated expedition of other days learnt to its cost, great dangers in the seasonal changes. Those who have, as I have, gone in search of birds' nests in the Roman Maremma, will appreciate, what we have to be thankful for. Nor are the beasts of these islands any more fearsome than the climate. Our existing carnivora would, save on rare occasions the INTRODUCTORY. 19 weasel, make off on the approach of a child; our only poisonous reptile, equally fond of making itself scarce, causes little more than temporary inconvenience by its bite, unless, indeed, the patient be in a bad state of health already ; the sharks of our seas are mostly infants ; even our insects are to be dreaded less than those of any other country I know of. This little volume may, perchance, prove an incentive and a help to such outdoor study. I hope, indeed I might dare expect, so much of it. For there is much to be gained, by both the individual and the nation, not to speak of the benefit accruing to the beasts and birds themselves, if only this taste for natural history become more general. There is a large and ever-increasing class of readers. These are well in their way, and it is not for writers of books, at any rate, to deny their usefulness. But this reading of natural history should be the prelude to observation at first hand, not its substitute. The book of nature is in many chap- ters, and most of its pages are as yet un- Field-work. 4 , , rm. u i • * L ,, . turned by man. The book is free to all who will open it. None are privileged, and the deepest secrets are revealed at a moment's notice to professor or plough- man. The interpretation is another matter; and what is fraught with meaning for one, causing him, no mat- ter what his creed, to stand amazed, baring his head in presence of that which not all his poor book-learning can explain, another will pass by with a shrug, the even tenor of his thoughts not for one instant disturbed. It is the old story of " Eyes and no Eyes." The boy is father to the man ; and he who, as a truant from morning school, regards the hedge-sparrow as designed for no more than a butt for swan-shot, whose acquaintance with his country's beasts and birds is strictly limited to the fitness of each species for the table, will in riper years make no secret of his creed : The earth is the Anglo-Saxon's, and the fulness thereof ! MAMMALS MAMMALS. THE mammals of these islands are surpassed in poverty only by the reptiles. New Zealand is the only land, ex- Poverty of cepting perhaps the Polar regions, of consider- literature on able size with a poorer list of four-footed in- cur mammals, habitants ; and, compared with the doubtful rat and various bats of that region, our quadrupeds make quite a formidable list. They have failed, however, to arouse that interest that has ever attached to our birds, fishes, and insects, as witness the literature of the subject. There are not many more than half-a-dozen works of any standing, as against over two hundred treating of our birds. For this lack of interest in the quadrupeds many reasons might be assigned, but none operates perhaps more powerfully than the great difficulty of observing them, second only to that of studying living fishes. Birds live under our eyes : they are, with few exceptions, creatures of daylight, and we can watch them obtaining their food and rearing their young. Our beasts are, with equally few exceptions, creatures of twilight and darkness, are careful to keep far from the haunts of man. How far this love of darkness is natural, and how far it is the result of a proper appreciation of man's peculiarities, who shall say ? The fact remains ; and the discomfort, often impossibility, of nocturnal excursions has, I think, 24 MAMMALS. much to answer for in the paucity of books on the subject. That there is need of a new and up-to-date account of our mammals no one will doubt, for the standard work on the subject is nearly a quarter of a century old, and some pro- gress has been made since its appearance, more particularly in our knowledge of the distribution of the smaller rodents, which wants collecting. Such a volume is more than half completed by Mr Harting — as mentioned indeed in his valedictory remarks when resigning the editorship of the ' Zoologist ' ; and the name of the author of ' Extinct British Animals' should be a guarantee that the work will be all that is required. Meanwhile, then, Bell remains the handbook on the sub- ject, though some later information is to be found in the Bell's volume in the ' Naturalist's Library,' in which, ' British however, Mr Lydekker's chapter on our " Ex- Quadrupeds.' tinct Mammals" will probably have attracted most readers. Examined critically in the light of an addi- tional quarter of a century's investigation, Bell's second edition (1874) has no doubt its faults, and in the Irish list more particularly, as also in the old error of the beech- marten, needed some correction ; but, for careful attention to detail, it stands alone. Of the six orders that find representatives among the seventy-one mammals on the British list (I exclude the so-called wild cattle and the domestic beasts), two only, the bats and cetaceans*, and a sub-order, the seals, present much difficulty, since they alone can, like the birds, move freely between these islands and the neighbouring main- land. This does not imply that there is not yet a great deal to be learnt about the habits and distribution of the smaller land mammals ; but the older errors — as, for in- stance, the presence of two martens, the inclusion in the Irish list of the wild cat, dormouse, and others, as well as the long-lived fable about the alpine hare not changing its coat in that island — are confusions that belong to an age of imperfect communication. MAMMALS. 25 These and other deficiencies in the Irish fauna, as well as their probable explanation, have been alluded to on a previous page; and it may be added that Irish several attempts have from time to time been mammals. . . made to differentiate the Irish stoat, otter, and long-tailed field-mouse. These have not as yet, however, been generally accepted as more than varieties. Formerly too, before the appearance of the second edition of Bell's work, the Irish hare was distinguished on account of the above-mentioned error respecting the permanent colour of its coat. I have already enumerated the animals which have be- come extinct in these islands in comparatively recent times. Protection The w^ ca^ an(^ the polecat will probably be versus ex- next to go; and in truth very few of those termination. Wh0 have most right to a voice in the mat- ter will miss them. Extreme views are never more to be deprecated than in this question of protection; and the keeper who shoots and traps indiscriminately without thought of the mischief he may be doing, is scarcely more to blame than are those dwellers in cities who, without any concern, direct or otherwise, in such matters, raise their voice in pious ejaculation whenever they read in the 'Field' or elsewhere of the death of a polecat or other vermin. Our noxious mammals are, though small, many and active. True, there is no danger to man, for our woods harbour no beast that could not with address be despatched with a spade ; but the damage done, one way with another, by the fox, wild cat, polecat, marten, stoat, weasel,1 otter, seals, and all the rodents with the excep- tion of the largely insectivorous dormouse, is simply in- Interfering calculable. It would not, of course, answer to with the exterminate any one of these ; for if the car- " balance." nivora were gone, the rodents would multiply into a plague, and even if the latter could be annihilated, 1 Sir Herbert Maxwell informs me that he preserves weasels, being persuaded that their staple food consists of mice, voles, and rabbits. 26 MAMMALS. the larger beasts would be forced to turn their attention exclusively to the hen-house and the game-preserve. The balance has been upset so often, and with such dire results, that the present generation should be chary about experi- ments of this kind, though even lately " lady-birds," as we call them, have been introduced into a tropical island to devour certain noxious native aphides, and there is a still more recent movement afoot for acclimatising the nightin- gale in America, as a pleasant change from the mocking- bird. It would seem fair, however, to suppose that an island without either rodents or carnivora would be an ideal one for the agriculturist and farmer ; and New Zea- land, indeed, is a case in point. In the ordinary course, however, an island incapable of supporting so much wild life has little in its soil to recommend it for such purposes. It is, above all things, important that we should not harbour any false notion that there is nothing more to be learnt about our few mammals. From time to time we hear the same plaint about the birds, yet book after book appears ; and though it would be wide of the mark to say that each new contribution to our bird-lore is full of original matter, it is at least safe to aver that there is something new, some trifling addition to our knowledge of the birds, in almost every one. The food and reproduction of many of our mammals are still matters of argument; and if an opening for original investigation is sought, we need not look further than the remarkable and still unexplained mortality to which our shrews are subject at the end of summer. LIST OF BRITISH MAMMALS. 27 fl IO OO HT} >O CO Tt< C^C^ Tf1 I - 3 (g 5 G L w o 1 1 Lesse 28 MAMMALS. 5 length in feet. o p ippipp p op ippo ip cp H •^ •** *i 4t< o «b c ^ g ^i ~ ,^s S ^ » .^ S g ^ j «! $ a « 5. «,a,^^ ^ s. ^^^ «. «a> 8 W cc s — g III J % p o 1 1 II ss 1 1 IB= 1 1 1 1 1 o % s * 3 * " « 1 fe o 2 H 1 a 2 X 2 S i o ^ C w < £ x 3 3 £H O S AH H CO S M tf i>. AlrHOOOO AlOO (Nr^lr^l o 1O 03 o ^ -1 g, & JH r=1 fc< " •s I 03 "o = = O3 S. & ^ & „£ % 0 to ^ > . fg O rZ^ £ IlIllJ ^Sm Ill • o , •^^03 0) ^ O Cd [V] pr*. I 111 I . 1 § § <* ^ § § 69 <» 3 so slfMi s S « s . e ^ S § « 5S^ g^ 1 iS^5 III S &3 ^2 1,-i.g III <» -s ^> § S li 1 1 fill 1 30 MAMMALS. 11 o> |1 8 S S & « S S S S Is" O OO GO COMMON XAME. "^ S S* a? tlenosed Dolphin ite-beaked „ lite-sided ,, UosWOPHPnOS^^ft & $* § 1 I § 1 1 s S •2 1 Sja'jJSstellSaxjjl -2 1 § §'^3's« S's a *n § i^'§1 r«a *<*> O Q O r*> *-^ ^* S *••* ^ XfO^-'Ooa^CjJr^g^e HB H 0 CO ? || 1 | | f 1 | 1 I 1^1"^ LagenorhyncJlus | Q A. Q A H Jjl H Q 31 CHAPTEE I. THE BATS. THE list of Bats as given by the older writers on British zoology now requires some revision; and we find the present number to be at the outside four- siecies teen,, while a fifteenth, the particoloured bat, is included on slender evidence. Their posi- tion, too, has undergone change, for while the older natu- ralists regarded them as the link between mammals and birds, they are now more correctly placed between the lemurs and insectivora. All British bats are truly insec- tivorous, the large fruit-eating kinds, so common in India, Australia, and Madagascar, being absent from this part of the world.1 They are particularly fond of moths. Their teeth are therefore cusped, and vary in number from thirty- two to thirty-eight. It is also believed that they drink regularly. The hairless membrane that joins the tail and fingers is worked by powerful muscles, so that these crea- tures are virtually winged and fly much as birds, their steering, which is remarkably sharp, being achieved by the aid of the inter-femoral membrane that encloses most of the tail. 1 Roughly speaking, the bats of temperate regions are almost ex- clusively insectivorous, whereas tropical kinds (Pteropus, &c.) live on fruit, and some of the larger species suck the blood of sleeping mammals. From some islands where winged insects are not con- spicuous (Iceland, Kerguelen, &c.) there are no bats. 32 MAMMALS. So extraordinary is the sensibility of this entire mem- brane that several naturalists, Spallanzani among them, have attributed to these animals the posses- A sixth . ,. . , , , . , . . , . sense sion °* a Slx^n sense, a hypothesis that rests for the most part on the fact that, when arti- ficially blinded, they have been known to fly clear of threads suspended in a darkened room. Other observers have testified to the remarkably keen sense of smell pos- sessed by them. All bats are without doubt seen to greatest advantage on the wing. On the ground, they shamble for the most part very awkwardly, the long-eared bat by alternately hooking on with the curved nail of the fore-thumb and raising itself on its hind-legs, the rest running along with bent head. Most bats can swim, though they do not take to the water by preference, nor can they leave it without some difficulty. Without exception, they suffer much from parasites, numbers of small ticks, not unlike those associated with house -martins, being found beneath the fur. They are also preyed on by stoats and owls, and occasionally by the hobby and kestrel.1 It is a mistake to regard bats as creatures of darkness, for although the majority of species do not come abroad until, at all events, the twilight, it is not by any means uncommon to find a stray one or two about, especially in early summer, at midday. They hibernate for various periods, some kinds in soli- tude, others in pairs, but the greater part in colonies, in which each sex often keeps to itself, in old Hibernating. ruins, caves, church -towers, or hollow trees. In this winter sleep they are usually found hanging head downwards. Mild days will, however, tempt them forth 1 It is a remarkable fact that a number of dogs show the greatest reluctance to pick up a bat, the scent apparently affecting them ; and Sir R. Payne-Gallwey records a similar objection in respect of dogs retrieving snipe and woodcock. THE BATS. 33 at all seasons, and I have seen the pipistrelle abroad within a fortnight of Christmas. When disturbed and dragged forth against their will, they usually become very active for an hour or two, but rarely survive this unwonted energy. In breeding, the different species vary somewhat ; but, as a rule, the female brings forth one, or at most two, at a birth in early summer, wrapping the young in a fold of her membrane. It will now suffice to enumerate briefly the fourteen species referred to. The Great Bat, called by White the "high-flier," is found in hollow trees, its presence being often betrayed Great Bat by its fetid odour. It is this bat that has or Noctule. been found hibernating in pairs. The mem- brane starts above the ankle. There is a line of hair along the forearm, in which it resembles the next species. It appears not to have occurred in either Wales or Scot- land, but has been noticed in Ireland. The Hairy-armed Bat, a smaller species that closely re- sembles the last, save for certain differences in the teeth, Hairy- is apparently confined to our south-western armed Bat. counties, and to a few districts of Ireland. It is at most but a rare wanderer. The Pipistrelle is the commonest of our bats, and is the more in evidence inasmuch as it rarely hibernates for more ,,. . , „ than three months, and is consequently seen at Pipistrelle. . , . a time when most other species are in hiding. Though insectivorous by preference, devouring even the hard wing-cases of beetles, it will also, in captivity at any rate, feed readily on flesh. Save for a tuft of black hair over the eye, the face is almost naked. The fur is reddish brown at the surface, but much darker, almost black, at the roots. The ears are conspicuously lobed and notched on the margin. Over the mouth are large glands. The membrane starts below the ankle. The Serotine (the V. noctula of St Hilaire, whose V. serotinus is our V. noctula) is a solitary bat met with in C 34 MAMMALS. the home counties, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the Metropolis. Its name implies that its activity com- mences only in the evening, and few bats are Serotine. , * less frequently seen abroad by day. Its torpor lasts for at least six months, as it is rarely seen before the early days of May, and disappears again in September or October. Its flight, especially when it first returns to life, is laboured, though at all times easily distinguished, by those who know both, from the more deliberate movements of the last species, to which it has in this respect been compared. In other particulars there is considerable re- semblance. This bat does not, however, give birth to more than one at a time, while the pipistrelle has been known to produce two. The Mouse- coloured Bat is the largest, as it is also one of the rarest, of British bats ; indeed its claim to a place Mouse- *n our ^auna ig> like that of the next, very coloured slight. It is described as a quarrelsome, un- Bat* sociable species, feeding largely on moths, as well as on smaller insects. The membrane, which includes all but the tip of the tail, is dark yellow, and partly cov- ered with hair. There are also conspicuous tufts over the eyes, and there is some hair elsewhere on the face. [Once recorded from the New Forest, Bechstein's bat Bechstein's has been admitted into our fauna, which is as Bat. unsatisfactory as the inclusion of a number of so-called " British " birds.1] Natterer's Bat is a smaller allied species, and lighter in colour. It is the most hairy of all British bats. The fur is long and soft; in colour reddish grey grey or " and white. The membrane, which has a grey Natterer's shade, includes the ankle. Ears very long and pointed. This species, which is widely distributed throughout the British Islands, though less i The Rough-legged and Particoloured Bats are also admitted to the British list on the strength of the capture of a single example of each ! They do not therefore invite description in the present outline. THE BATS. 35 partial to forest districts than the last, may be distin- guished by the conspicuous fringe on the interfemoral membrane. Daubenton's Bat is not infrequently seen hawking Dauben- over water. On the face are two prominent ton's Bat. swellings. The ears, nearly as long as the head, are oval in shape, lobed and notched on the outer margin. It occurs throughout these islands, though no- where is it very common. The Whiskered Bat is a small, solitary, and swift-flying bat, not uncommon in Hampshire and the neighbouring Whiskered counties, but gradually rarer farther north, Bat- and not indeed recorded from Scotland until comparatively recently. In Ireland its occurrences would also appear to be few and far between. This species hibernates for a short period only in ruins, caves, or hollow trees. The face is thickly furred, hence the trivial name. There are a number of transverse bands on the membrane, which is devoid of lobe and starts from the base of the foot. The tail is long and curved. The Long-eared Bat is one of the commonest kinds indi- genous to these islands, easily distinguished by the great Long-eared length of its ears and tail, the former being Bat- flexible and semi-transparent, and almost as long as the body. When the animal is asleep they are observed to fold downwards. The voice of this bat is par- ticularly shrill and high-pitched — so much so, indeed, that many folks are quite unable to distinguish it. Bell and some older writers described a smaller species, in which the ears were proportionately less and the tail longer. It is now, however, referred to the present species. The Barbastelle is a rare bat of remarkable appearance and restricted distribution, being found chiefly, Barbastelle. ., , , ' . f' though nowhere in abundance, in our south- eastern counties, scarcer as we proceed northward, and 36 MAMMALS. apparently wanting in Scotland and Ireland. More than one writer has noticed its absence from apparently suit- able districts. The expression imparted by the position of the nostrils in a hairless depression over the muzzle is grotesque in the extreme, the effect being heightened by the tufts of black bristles on the cheeks. The face and ears are black, the latter being short, broad, and notched on the margin. This bat undergoes long retire- ment. The group to which our two Horseshoe Bats belong is characterised by the presence of a hairy, leaflike hood over Greater *ne snout, the exact purpose of which has Horseshoe not, so far, been satisfactorily determined. St Bat* Hilaire regarded it as a valve to the nostrils, but Bell considered it rather in the light of a highly de- veloped organ of smell, a view that has been more or less accepted by later writers. The Greater Horseshoe Bat is fairly common in the southern counties of England, becoming rarer farther north, and absent altogether from Scotland and Ireland. Its food consists largely of chafers, and it is essentially a forest bat. The nose-leaf is in three sections, that in front being in the form of a horseshoe, the second flat and bent at the sides, and the hinder one pointed. There is a conspicuous groove in the lower lip. The ears are pointed and the tail short. Long regarded as a variety of the last, the Lesser Horse- shoe Bat is distinguished by its inferior size, the position Lesser °f ^s lower teeth, and the depression in the Horseshoe hinder portion of the nose -leaf. Like the Bat' larger, it is found only in the southern coun- ties, but, unlike it, it is recorded from Ireland, where it has been taken in caves. It is not so fond of forests, and its flight is more powerful. THE INSECTIVOKA. 37 Food. CHAPTER II. THE INSECTIVORA. i. THE HEDGEHOG. The Hedgehog is among the creatures generally reck- oned as vermin of the farm. If any one has just cause of complaint against the hedgehog, it is not the farmer but the gamekeeper, as it has often been taken in traps baited with game-birds or their eggs. Its chief food, however, consists of worms and insects, and, when domesticated in the kitchen, it subsists largely on cockchafers. It is also known to attack adders, which lacerate themselves against its armour of spines. At any rate its diet is entirely animal, and White was in error when he endowed it with vegetarian tastes. Its worst offence is a rare raid on the hen-house. The most famil- iar habit of the hedgehog is that of rolling in a ball when threatened by danger, a special arrangement of the muscles enabling it to assume this re- markable position. In this way it is able to keep off most of its enemies, including even dogs specially trained for its pursuit, but the fox is said to possess the secret of making it unbend by ducking it in some swamp, or by a disgusting process which it is unde- sirable to describe in detail. The badger is also said to be Enemies. 38 MAMMALS. a sworn foe of this animal.1 Another advantage of the coat of spines is that its elasticity is sufficient to break any fall. This it was that formerly lent weight to the slander that the hedgehog was given to climbing fruit-trees and bearing off the fruit impaled on its spines. It has a curious habit of taking up its quarters in particular gardens, where, if unmolested, it will remain for many months. A young hedgehog had taken up its residence in this way in the garden of a house in Cornwall where I was recently stay- ing, and it would run about the gravel walks all night, lying in hiding during the day. At last the owner of the house bought some poultry, and it was all I could do to prevent his throwing the unfortunate hedgehog into a neighbouring stream. I managed, however, to persuade him to deposit it in a market -garden close by, where I have no doubt it did good service. Early naturalists were pleased to weave romance round the birth and nourishment of young hedgehogs, which are, needless to say, as those of other mammals. The hedge- hog pairs for life, and the young — five, six, or, according to Mr Harting, even seven in number — are born early in August in a roomy nest of dead leaves. When first born they are blind, the spines being, more- over, white and soft, but soon assuming the colour and hardness of maturity. Save by gipsies, who roast it " in its jacket," the flesh of the hedge- hog is not eaten in this country, though it is a favourite dish in the French provinces, where, according to some writers, two species are recognised. The appearance of the hedgehog is unique among British mammals, nor is any one likely to confuse it with any other beast, unless it be with the Australian ppe^ance> echidnas, to which it certainly bears some superficial resemblance. Rather less than a foot long, the arched body is covered with dull white, sharp spines, an inch or more in length, and having a dark 1 See the ' Zoologist,' January 1888, p. 10. THE INSECTIVOKA. 39 ring at the centre, from which they taper to either end. On the head and belly these spines are replaced by coarse yellow bristles. In colour, hedgehogs show considerable variation, and perfectly white examples are on record. The ears and neck of this animal are short, as are also the legs, the feet having five toes armed with strong curved claws The weight of a live grown hedgehog now in possession of a friend of Mr Harting's is i^ Ib. Being unable to find any record of the hedgehog's weight, I persuaded Mr Harting to have this one weighed specially. 2. THE MOLE. Although partial to the interesting little Mole, which, like the Californian black ant among insects, is for its size about the strongest of its class, I have always * a^ been careful not to spoil its case by pretend- ing that its offences are altogether imaginary. They are at any rate light. From February onward it may undermine the potato-bed, and later in the year it may even disturb the even surface of the cricket-pitch or tennis-court, or, worse still, chase grubs through the drills of young turnips. Nor can it claim to be the friend of the gardener by reason of its destruction of myriads of earth- worms, for gardeners of the present enlightened age know well that the erst-despised worm has its uses in nature's economy. At the same time, much of their work, which consists for the most part in turning over the clogged soil, is accomplished by their devourer, which also consumes vast quantities of such noxious creatures as the wireworm and larva of the "daddy long-legs," known in England as " leather grub," in Scotland as " pout." The mole also devours mice, shrews, small reptiles, and frogs, but is said to draw the line at the toad. It has also been described as laying up a store of worms for the winter in an underground pit, a state- ment which is, however, open to considerable doubt, as 40 MAMMALS. the mole works throughout the year, its casts in winter often showing through the snow.1 This lean animal diet — for, like the hedgehog, the mole eats no vegetable food — induces continuous thirst, to quench which the mole is known to sink deep shafts for water. Its enormous ap- petite is partly attributable to its constant exertion, but I have once or twice had captive moles, that had no work to do, die overnight for want of worms. It seems indeed as if this animal must be ever feeding, and certainly no other starves more easily. Though it seems to do most of its engineering and hunting by night, the mole is not by any means inactive in the daytime, and it is observed to be in motion at certain fixed hours, which it appears to keep with great precision. It works near the surface, almost above it when there is snow on the ground; and Mr Lydekker has happily compared its progress to that of a porpoise in a smooth sea, which re- calls the curious fact, already mentioned, that, though un- known, both now and formerly, in Ireland, there are sev- eral Irish names for this creature, and one of these denotes "porpoise."2 The distribution of the mole is not devoid of interest. In many apparently suitable districts, where it would 1 I do not intend calling in question the existence of such stores of worms, for these are not uncommon ; but their ultimate object, to pro- vide food in winter, or, as is also alleged, to feed the new-born young, seems at least very questionable. 2 Sir Herbert Maxwell points out that the common Irish equivalent for porpoise is muc mara (sea-pig) ; but the word I have in mind, but cannot recall, may be a provincialism. THE INSECTIVORA. 41 find food in abundance and soft soil to work in, it is wanting altogether. Very abundant throughout England and the Lowlands of Scotland, it becomes ibution. n the Highlandgj and is absent from many of the islands. The question is asked from time to time, What becomes of the moles in flood-time 1 and I fancy the solution of the riddle is to be sought in the instinct that prompts them to tunnel in sloping ground in the neighbourhood of rivers. This is at any rate the case in the Dover valley, where last February (1897) I found hundreds tods> of runs in the soft soil of either cliff, but not a single one down on a level with the stream. Of the structure of the mole and its marvellous adap- tation to its conditions of existence, little remains to be said. Built essentially for progress, always Physical nungry and always tunnelling into fresh peculiarities. , f. , „ ,, ,, , ., hunting-grounds, all the strength of the "moudiewarp" is concentrated, as is apparent from a casual examination of the skeleton, in the fore -limbs, the others being comparatively weak. The fur, growing perpendicular, lies equally well in any direction, thereby offering little resistance to the narrow walls against which it brushes. The mole can run rapidly, as Le Court proved by placing little sticks with flags in its run and noting the rapidity with which it displaced them.1 It is also some- thing of a swimmer, though it is not known to take to the water unless pursued by the weasel, its worst enemy after man. As in the hedgehog, the senses of smell and hearing are acute, and it is owing to this that the traps of the professional mole-catchers often make large catches on the most windy nights. There is, for all the mole's keen sense of hearing, no external ear, but merely an orifice hidden by coarse hairs. 1 The value of this historic experiment has been called in question, for a horn was inserted in the run and sounded to frighten the mole, and the displacement of the flags has been attributed to the sudden air-pressure. 42 MAMMALS. The sense of sight is, however, practically in abeyance, though the eyes are not, as in its cousin of the Mediter- ranean countries, totally enveloped in the skin, but may be seen by any one who will take the trouble to blow aside the fur that normally conceals them. The elongated muzzle, which is the most sensitive part of the mole's anatomy (especially in the North American genus, on the snout of which is a starlike growth, recalling the nose-leaf in some bats), is thought to give assistance in tunnelling, though the powerful back -turned claws would appear to need little help. The engineering works of the mole have been so often described that a very brief notice of its wondrous under- ground establishment will here suffice. What Molehills. i i i -11 • , i • JT we know as a molehill is nothing more than the earth thrown up by the creature as it forages into fresh feeding-grounds, its course being along a kind of highroad, also clearly discernible at the surface. It is in this main track that the traps are set. The actual fortress of the mole, a circular abode reached by a number of passages converging from this highroad, is not thrown up in the exposed part of a field like the hills, but is generally in a natural hummock, or I have found them in hedges. It has a circular gallery, into which run the paths from the highroad. The mole works at various depths according to the nature of the soil and the scarcity of worms, and it is by this that its mischief to the farmer is reckoned. As already mentioned, when snow lies thick on the ground, it works almost at the top. When, how- ever, worms are scarce, as in periods of drought, it sinks its shafts to a much greater depth, and is at such times incapable of doing any damage whatever. On occasion, these animals will obtain their food above ground, where they often feed on certain larvae. This is observed most frequently in the early part of the year. The females, being in the minority, have a number of lords, and great fights are held in their honour, it being THE INSECTIVORA. 43 impossible for two males to pass one another in the pairing season without a desperate fight ct, Voutrance. The nest, distinct from the fortress, is likewise beneath some hillock ; and as the moles use it but once, the Breedin deserted dwelling is usually appropriated by field-mice. The number of the litter would seem to average five, and personally I never found more, though six, and even seven, are recorded. They appear to be born about the end of July, at least I have found them still blind the first week in August. The appearance of the mole is too familiar to need detailed description; in fact, as the characters given in this little book are only such as may enable the reader to distinguish the species under notice, it is scarcely necessary to enumerate the features of one that could scarcely be confused with any other. In colour the mole is, as a rule, glossy black, but grey, yellow, and even albino examples are not rare. When first born, the young are pale brown or grey, their snout being of a delicate pink. The average weight of an adult mole is just under 4 ounces. It has attracted the attention of more than one writer on the subject that so interesting a creature as the mole, one, too, sufficiently common in his part of Buckland. Hampshire, should have been mentioned but once, and that incidentally, in White's ' Sel- borne.' This reminds me of the drawing of a mole's hand with six fingers, which embellishes Buckland's (1875) edition of that work. 3. THE SHKEWS. In the Shrews, we come to the least of our mammals, smallest of all being the Lesser Shrew, which holds the same position in its class as the goldcrest among our birds. Though frequently confounded with the rodent mice, they have no more in common with them than have the so-called 44 MAMMALS. " pouched mice " of the Australian region. Indeed they bear, especially in the peculiarly sensitive snout, consider- ably more resemblance to their near ally, the mole. Being, however, still more exclusive in their preference for insect diet, though their pugnacity leads them to attack with zeal small birds, lizards, frogs, and the like, they are even less mischievous, though the Water-Shrew makes an occa- sional raid on fish and their spawn. They are normally of dark colour, but albinos have been recorded from time to time in the columns of the * Field,' both of the Common species in Great Britain and of the Lesser in Ireland. The Common Shrew is widely distributed throughout Great Britain and some of the Scottish isles, but is not Common found in Ireland. It has the fighting instincts Shrew. of fts race . an(j tfiQ quantities of dead shrews found in country lanes in late summer might easily be attributed to this cause, were it not that they bear on them no outward signs of violence. As it is, this singular mortality remains without satisfactory expla- Mortahty. J • -o nation. The shrew has many enemies. By man, curiously enough, it is but little troubled, which may in part be due to its retiring habits, though formerly a very cruel and ridiculous super- stition that its touch was suf- ficient to lame cattle led to its persecution and tne barbarous antidote of the "shrew ash," in which the offender was buried alive, imparting to the wood, so it was said, marvellous healing Enemies q11^^68' ^ ™> however, largely consumed by owls and moles, while cats kill but do not eat it, a habit that has been thought by some to account for the dead shrews aforementioned. THE INSECTIVOEA. 45 The shrew breeds in the spring, the young, which number from five to eight, being born in July or August in an un- derground nest made of dry grass and leaves.1 Breeding. J= f The shrews are all of more or less nocturnal habits, but, unlike the mole, they find their food at the surface, and consequently, instead of displacing the soil, their runs are made in the grass, much as those of fish and waterfowl in the reeds in Broadland. They Hibernation. . •..,•<, u • - become torpid in winter, their sleep being more perfect than that of bats, and rarely, if ever, disturbed by any unusual rise in temperature. The colour of the Common Shrew is usually reddish above and grey beneath. Its most distinctive feature is the short> bristly, four-sided tail. Like all the group, it secretes an unpleasant odour in lateral glands concealed by long hairs. Of the Lesser Shrew little need be said beyond the interesting fact in its distribution that, while less common Lesser in England, it replaces the larger shrew in Shrew. Ireland and the Hebrides. The forearm is Distribution, relatively shorter than in the latter, the teeth being also more minute. The Water Shrew is a rapid swimmer and powerful Water diver, the fur keeping comparatively dry when Shrew, immersed. It does not occur in Ireland. Its food consists, like that of the others, chiefly of insects, caddis among the rest ; but it seems admitted that it has occasionally been caught in the act of devouring the spawn and fry of game fish. In turn, it is much persecuted by the weasel, which over- takes it in the water with ease, and also by pike and, in Continental rivers, wels. The female, considerably the smaller of the two, gives 1 The nest is usually in a depression of the ground, but Mr Harting tells me that it is sometimes found in a clover field, ball-shaped, like that of the harvest-mouse. This shrew is thought by some to rear a second litter (see the ' Zoologist,' November 1896, p. 432). 46 MAMMALS. birth to a litter of from five to eight young in May, rearing them at the end of a long burrow of her own digging in a nest of moss and dry grass. This is the largest of our shrews. The body is broader, the snout less tapering, the tail more slender than in the common species, and fringed with white hairs. Appearance, The ^^ Qf reddish hue ftt ^ tipgj afe slightly recurved. The fur is black above, white beneath, as also within the ears. [The older writers described a fourth shrew, a variety, as is now well known, of the present species.] CHAPTER III. THE CARNIVORA. i. THE WILD CAT. Of the now narrow distribution of the Wild Cat, fiercest of our surviving carnivora, much has been written, while its European range is the subject of a most interesting volume. An additional interest formerly attached to it by reason of its having been long regarded as the pro- genitor of our domestic breeds; but this view is now generally rejected. Nevertheless, the wild and domesti- cated cats are known to interbreed. That the wild cat still holds its own, though in dimin- ishing numbers, in the wilder districts of Argyllshire, in Lochaber, and the extreme north-west of Scot- land generally, is beyond all doubt, though considerable caution is necessary before accept- ing every reported wild cat as genuine, so many examples having proved on investigation to be the domestic animal run wild. Apart from this, there has been confusion, as THE CARNIVOKA. 47 Harvie-Brown l points out, between this creature and the marten. The same writer refers to its absence from the Hebrides. Not so many years ago the wild cat survived farther south. .Roebuck 2 gives the year 1840 as the date of its extinction in Yorkshire. Major Fisher 3 saw one in very bad condition in North Wales. I recollect Sir Her- bert Maxwell telling me of one said to have been caught less than fifty years ago in Oxfordshire, and now in a glass case at Middleton. He has not, however, been able to verify the date of its capture. From the Lake district it seems to have vanished half a century ago ; and as it is undoubtedly a very great nuisance to the farmer and gamekeeper, it would not be surprising if its extinction in these islands were to follow closely on the dawn of the twentieth century. Such folks have no time to devote much thought to the less practical consideration of the impoverishment of our mammalian fauna, nor, it must be confessed, is there much to be said on behalf of this fierce and voracious beast. It is almost a blessing that it is so easily trapped, showing very little suspicion of any baited fall, a little valerian root being, according to Speedy, sufficient to attract any game-hunting cat. The wild cat, it is now generally agreed, never occurred in Ireland. Br The young, five or six in number, are born in early summer, the lair being either in a hollow tree or in some deserted badger-earth. Seen in the museum — and few have nowadays any op- portunity of seeing it elsewhere — it is a striking animal, bearing a strong resemblance to the lynx. ^e k° with domestic dogs. That crosses (known as " cocktails ") do occur there can be little doubt, but the THE CARNIVORA. 51 subject is one that requires considerable investigation before the extent of their breeding can be satisfactorily estimated. The cubs remain blind for some days after birth. Little need be added as to the appearance of so familiar an animal. Few creatures alter their appearance more under different conditions. The lithe, snake- APPea™nce, like body gives, when seen sneaking away along the ground, a very different impression from its appearance when flying before the hounds, where the observer can appreciate the use of the slender legs and the steering power of the bushy tail, which has sometimes a conspicuous white tip. Unlike the larger grey fox of the Highlands, our race is of an almost uniform reddish hue with variable grey markings, underparts white, as also the extremity of the tail, some black on the head and legs. The pointed muzzle, oblique eyes with elliptical pupils, and tapering ears, always erect, are all sufficiently familiar fea- tures. The characteristic scent 1 is secreted in a gland be- neath the tail. The white "tag" is no indication of sex. 3. THE MARTEN AND ITS ALLIES. The Pine Marten, another of our rapidly diminishing beasts, is still known to breed in the Peak country and in Pine parts of Wales, and one was said to have been Marten, obtained in Leicestershire as recently as last year. It also holds its own in a few wild parts of the Highlands, and was seen in Argyllshire last year, though of late years it has sensibly diminished, and has disappeared altogether from some of the islands where it was formerly not uncommon. In parts of Ireland, especially in Kilkenny, the "marten cat " is not scarce. 1 Lord Coventry, in the course of his article on Fox-hunting in the 'Encyclopaedia of Sport,' points out an interesting fact known to hunting-men, and that is, that the scent is certain to be poor on days when gossamer is observed floating in the air. 52 MAMMALS. Food. Essentially, for all its partly webbed feet, a tree-haunt- ing species, the marten feeds almost entirely, save for an occasional relapse to such humble fare as wild honey, on birds and squirrels, which it pur- sues among the branches. Though it is known to de- scend periodically to the ground to vary its diet with game and rabbits, there is reason to believe that its offences in this direction are ex- aggerated. Like all its tribe, it can get over the ground very rapidly, advancing with sidelong leaps. More than one litter is brought forth in the year, the first, numbering three or four, appearing some time in April, in an old squirrel's dreywappro- priated for the purpose. The brown fur is long and glossy, the ears round and hairy. The underparts are of yellowish hue, and there is a conspicuous patch of the same on the throat. Appearance, The colour becomes deepest on the tail, which terminates in a brush. This species lacks the offensive odour of some of its relatives. [The Beech, or Stone, Marten never existed in these islands, save in books and menageries.] The Polecat is the largest and the worst smelling of our weasels, the scent being secreted in an anal pouch, and at Polecat or once impregnating everything with which it Foumart, comes in contact. The foumart (foul marten), as it is therefore appropriately called in the North Country, is of somewhat restricted distribution, it having become THE CARNIVORA. 53 rarer and rarer throughout these islands, until neighbour- hoods where it was till comparatively recent years not uncommon, now know it no longer. Accord- ing to Messrs Harvie-Brown and Buckley, it never occurred in the Hebrides. To Ireland it is not indigenous. Any kind of live food seems acceptable to this voracious beast, among its favourite items being poultry, ducks, rabbits, and young game-birds, frogs, toads, and even eels, a picture of a polecat with a large eel in its jaws figuring in the " Naturalist's Library," in Mr Lydekker's volume on ' British Mammals.' There would be nothing remarkable in its taking eels, since they will often wriggle through the wet grass from one water to another, besides which the polecat is a powerful swimmer. Most of its hunting is done by night, but one was shot in broad daylight when pursuing something in a hedge on a private property (July 1893) in Suffolk. The female brings forth five or six young in early summer, rearing them in some rabbit-burrow. In colouring, this animal is of a uniform dark brown, some of the longer fur being almost black. White mark- ings are present on the sides of the head and near the mouth. The bushy tail is shorter than that Appearance, of the marten> Maximum weight, about 6 Ib. [The Ferret is merely a domesticated variety of the pole- cat, from which it is easily distinguished by its inferior size and the lighter colour of the fur. Never- theless, escaped ferrets are continually re- ported as genuine polecats. The ferret, as is the case with most domesticated races, multiplies much more rapidly than its wild relative, the litter numbering as many as eight or nine, and a second litter being frequently pro- duced.] The Stoat, or Ermine, is not more than two-thirds the 54 MAMMALS. size of the last, yet often confounded in parts of York- shire.1 The most interesting point in connection with this member of the tribe is its seasonal change of coat. In Stoat or summer-time, when it is known in the Fen Ermine. Country as " lobster," its coat is reddish- brown ; in winter, however, this is replaced (whether by fresh growth or by actual colour-change in the fur itself was long a disputed point) by almost uniform white' only the extreme tip of the tail retain- ing its blackness. It is now generally ad- mitted that this protective colouring is brought about by the growth of new fur, and not, as formerly averred, by the effect of the fall in temperature on the colour of its summer coat. The change is observed to be less complete in the milder win- ters of our south- ern counties, there being permanent dark patches about the head and back. In autumn, there is an intermediate pied stage. Unfortunately for the beast, the mingled black-and-white fur has long been in special demand for the linings of State robes ; and though the fur, even in Highland examples, of our ermines is not of sufficient beauty for the market, in Northern Europe and Asia the little animals are persecuted wholesale, their pursuit having led to the opening up of a deal of the interior of Siberia. The stoat is an unmitigated nuisance in the hen-house and game-preserve. It is an accomplished As vermin. . , . , . . , swimmer, and its movements on land, includ- ing the sideling leaps so characteristic of the family to which 1 Eagle-Clarke and Roebuck, Yorkshire Vertebrata, p. 7. THE CAKNIVORA. • 55 it belongs, are exceedingly rapid, so that it can run down a rabbit, as I have more than once seen it do, without difficulty. It is said to leap on its victim's back ; but I never saw this, my experience being rather that the rabbit, half stupefied by fear, was easily dragged down Pursuit of by the ear after a yery ghort chage The squeals of the unfortunate rabbit on such oc- casions are piercing, and seem different from its ordinary voice. The stoat is also known to ascend trees after birds and their eggs. In the fall of the year, stoats wander in packs, and are then said to attack even man, but I do not remember ever coming across an authenticated instance of this. Five or six young (as many as eight have been recorded) are born in spring. The stoat is widely distributed in these islands, its range extending to the Hebrides. Some naturalists pre- fer to distinguish the smaller Irish stoat, which is said to exhibit some slight varia- tion in colouring. In appearance it is not unlike its larger relative, the polecat, though its length is, with the tail, fully one-fourth less. In connection with the aforementioned winter change of coat, it is of interest to note that stoats have been found in the southern counties in their winter pp^crance> coat at mid-summer. At considerable alti- tudes they retain, as might be expected, the white coat throughout the year. The Weasel is the smallest British member of the group. Of wide distribution throughout the mainland of Great Weasel Britain, ** ^s apparently unknown in Ireland and the smaller isles. The so-called " weasel " of Ireland is the stoat.1 In the North, the weasel is known 1 The absence of the true weasel from Ireland has been denied by many gentlemen in the 'Field' and 'Zoologist'; but, as the then editor (Mr Harting) of the last-named magazine once had occasion to remark, the promised skins of Irish weasels were never forthcoming. 56 MAMMALS. as the "Whittret" ( = Whitethroat). The food of this species consists chiefly of the brains of rats, mice, and moles, all of which are seized by the head, the brains >od< sucked, and the body left. The alleged habit of blood - sucking is discredited by many. When hard pressed, these animals will eat carrion, and are at times partial to eggs, though these belong for the most part to wild birds that nest in trees and not to game-birds. They are also known to swim in pursuit of water-voles. These animals, though mostly feeding at night, are frequently met with in daylight; and I came across two in the same week a few miles out of Winchester. The greatest enemies of the weasel are the larger birds of prey ; and it is said to get the better of even the larg- est occasionally, clinging to their throat and bringing them back to earth faint from loss of blood. I have seen one carried up by a partridge, but the ascent was brief, the descent rapid, and the death of the stoat, brought about by a keeper who had no respect for the fact that " nature is one with rapine," the immedi- ate sequel. The weasel nests in some bank or hollow tree, and is prolific, the litter numbering from four to six. The alleged rearing of a second, or even third, Breeding. ,. ' litter appears to rest on scanty evidence. The weasel is less striking in appearance than its British relatives. The tail, more particularly, is inconspicuous, head small, neck long and muscular, body slender an(i arched. In colour, it is usually reddish above, white below. A winter change of coat is occasionally observed, but the phenomenon is of irregular occurrence. [Bell and other early writers alluded to a smaller species, an error apparently arising from the great variation in size to which the female is especially liable.] If appearance went for much in zoological classification, THE CARNIVORA. 57 we might well be tempted with the older naturalists to press the relationship of the Badger with the extinct British bear. The heavy gait, short legs, and Badger, ^airy body, all lend it at least as much resem- blance to the true bears as that possessed by the so-called bear of Australia. Appearances, however, go for very little, and more reliable characters link the badger with the weasels and otter, though the resemblance be exter- nally slight. The "brock," or "grey," as it is called in the provinces, where the former survives in a number of place-names, is often spoken of as on the verge of extinction, a notion partly due to its nocturnal and retiring habits. scarcity. Were it in the habit of seeking its food by day, so large a beast — an old dog-badger may weigh anything up to 40 Ib. — could not long escape obser- vation and the persecution that invariably accompanies it, As it is, it suffers a good deal of unnecessary cruelty. Perse f ^Ot many vears ag°5 tne sPort °f baiting the badger, otherwise exposing it in a greased barrel to the onslaught of rough terriers and mongrels, which eventually, and after undergoing much punishment 58 MAMMALS. from its terrible jaws, worried it to death, was a recognised diversion. This pastime is believed by some to be obso- lete. Others are curious to know what becomes of the large number of badgers openly caught on moonlight nights by bolting with the help of trained dogs into a sack placed in the entrance to its earth. The great care exercised in taking it alive may well arouse suspicion as to the unhappy beast's ultimate destination. Another modern method of taking the badger is that of digging it out with the aid of small dogs sent into its earth, and gripping it, as soon as it appears capture at t^ie entrance> in a Pair °f blunt tongs made for the purpose. Here, again, the extreme solicitude with which I have observed it on these occasions to be transferred to a roomy sack has suggested ultimate possibilities. There has been at least one badger club engaged in its pursuit. The food of this burrowing and undoubtedly carnivorous beast is exceedingly varied, and includes roots of bracken, nuts, fruit, more especially blackberries, small mammals (especially hedgehogs), and reptiles, grasshoppers and other insects, eggs and honey, wasps' nests being also a favourite dish. With the exception of an occasional leveret, its damage in the game-preserve may be generally dismissed as imaginary. Thus, Sir Herbert Maxwell has with no unsatisfactory results re-established it in Wigtownshire, where it had become extinct. Speedy,1 however, in his interesting book, declares it to be "the most formidable and difficult of ground vermin to deal with," but very sensibly advocates, instead of its wholesale destruction, its being caught alive and conveyed to those parts of the country where game-preserving is not the paramount consideration. It is, however, too often killed at sight. Only this spring (1897) a Yorkshire farmer killed with a blow from his stick a fine vixen weigh- ing 20 Ib. 1 Sport iu the Highlands, p. 320. THE GARNI VORA. 59 The strong scent of the badger is secreted in a large glandular pouch beneath the tail. For so heavily built an animal, it is singularly swift of foot, though it has not, as some aver, legs of unequal length to enable it to run uphill. When escape from the dogs is out of the question, its strongly articulated lower iaw and sharp teeth encourage it to stand Gentle j • e -^ ,r disposition at ^av an(* Slve a verv goo& account of itself. It is nevertheless extremely gentle by nature, and is, when taken young, capable of great affection for the hand that feeds it. A friend and myself kept one for nearly a year, which preferred young rats to any other food. At the end of that time it died, and I remember we thought at the time that its decease was due to the absence from its diet of some necessary corrective root of which we unfortunately did not know the secret. The badger is as a rule a silent beast, but it will occasionally utter piercing cries without apparent cause. The distribution of the badger in these islands is some- what local. As already remarked, its burrowing and nocturnal habits have caused it to be regarded as rarer than it really is. In the Lake district, however, it cer- tainly does appear to have diminished of late Present range. J ff years, though correspondingly extending its range in other directions. According to Roebuck,1 it is also dwindling in Yorkshire. By no means rare in the High- lands, where it hibernates, it is apparently unknown on most of the islands, though introduced into Jura.2 It is com- mon in parts of Ireland, where the peasantry cure its flesh. It breeds in the spring, four young being born in March Breeding, or April as a rule, though litters are recorded hiberna- in the summer. The period of gestation is tion, and said to vary. Its hibernation is no more appearance. than ft ^^^ gleepj fo^ although it stores a quantity of moss and grass in its so .-called winter 1 Yorkshire Vertebrata, p. 7. 2 Harvie-Browu and Buckley, Fauna of Argyll, p. 18. 60 MAMMALS. quarters, yet at no season is it torpid, in this country at least, in the true sense of the word. The prevailing colour of the badger is reddish -brown, with white streaks and white stripes on the face. Unless, however, the observer is close, the animal looks uniform grey. We have in the Otter another much persecuted member of the family, for which, although perhaps the most beau- tiful of our surviving quadrupeds, even its admirers cannot in fairness claim innocence of the charges brought against it. In the fox we had a beast preserved, notwithstanding the hatred of the farmer, for the sake of sport. In the otter we find a curious contradiction, for whereas it affords sport to a limited number of enthusiasts, it equally spoils the pros- pects of many a good salmon-stream. In consequence, it is mercilessly slaughtered, and the most one can hope for is, that it shall be killed in a manner worthy such a sport- ing beast, and not trapped or poisoned. To those who have no such direct interest in the stock of the rivers, few creatures lend more enchantment to the scene ; and there is that in the otter's flute-like whistle that makes the angler, if he be not the veriest pot-hunter, pause and listen. The distribution of the otter throughout these islands is universal Pollution has driven it from some rivers where it was formerly plentiful, and the draining of the fens has sent it to the Broads ; but it still flourishes in most parts of Great Britain and Ireland, on the wilder coasts of which, especially down in the west, otters remain alto- gether, seldom reverting to the inland waters. Distribution. rL These must not, of course, be confused with the larger (and generically distinct) sea-otter of the North Pacific. Otters are particularly abundant in the lochs and streams of the Scotch isles, in writing of which Harvie- Brown and Buckley1 give a spirited account of the animal's " holt," as its lair in the bank is called. 1 Fauna of Argyll, p. 17. THE CAKNIVOKA. 61 Though a fish-eater by preference, most of its poaching being done at night, it is occasionally driven by the scarcity of its favourite food to levy toll on rabbits and poultry ; but such raids are comparatively rare, and it is in its character as fish-poacher that the otter is detested. Among the other creatures on which it feeds with avidity are moorhens, which it captures by ambush, frogs and crayfish. Of all these it is particularly fond ; and when its native stream ceases to furnish it with any of these in sufficient quantity, it migrates elsewhere, even finding its way down to the sea-coast, where, much like the fox, it picks up a living on crabs and other jetsam. I know of several caves down near the Lizard where these animals have made a temporary home. In one instance, several years ago, I recollect a prolonged storm causing the death of one of these refugees; but whether it was starved to death, or whether an unusually high wave dashed it against a sharp rock, I never dis- covered. At any rate, my boatman picked its emaciated body up on a little beach just within the entrance, and its remains were respectfully lowered in a crab-pot, where they did good service for many days. Like so many of our wild creatures which in earlier days found their proffered confidence sorely abused, the otter, having grown shy, is regarded as much rarer ^an *s rea^y tne case- Few people, compara- tively speaking, unless they live beside some stream, have watched this singularly beautiful creature catching or devouring its prey, or, better still, gambol- ling with its young. The crown of its head disappearing at the apex of diverging ripples, as the wary creature swims rapidly away to the other bank, is the utmost that is vouchsafed to many a patient watcher. Nor are the In captivity. °PP°rtunities for studying it in captivity very much better, for it is, in most zoological gardens, kept in a half-starved condition, its slender dole of fish being seized and devoured in hasty and unnat- 62 MAMMALS. ural fashion, so that the impression that the visitor carries away with him is that of a restless, cat-like, some- what noisome creature, with even less claim to beauty than a skunk. In reality, however, whether reclining on its unsavoury lair with a half-devoured fish between its forepaws, ever on the alert for danger, or hunting up the fish beneath the surface, the air-bubbles imparting a beautiful silvery appearance to its fur, not unlike their effect on the plumage of diving-birds, the otter presents In nature a most ^ascinating picture. The lithe form, smooth fur, rudder-like tail, short legs, and large webbed feet, all have their part to play. Though seen to greatest advantage in the water, the otter is by no means an ungraceful animal on land, and the pace at which it can run over the earth, be it hard or swampy, is marvel- lous. It is not many years since a large otter was run over by a passing train near Market Drayton. The worst habit of this creature, and one which has doubtless gained more enemies for it than any other, is its mischievous practice of kill- ing more than it can eat, a wanton spirit of destructiveness that recalls the Australian dingo in its palmy days. The otter has not many natural enemies, though a recent Continental writer1 gives a graphic ac- count of a combat between two otters and a sea-eagle. The " holt " of the otter is in some convenient hole in the bank, and the young, four or five in number, are born in Breedin *^6 summerj not> as frequently stated, in early spring, at which season the dam has not even thought about making ready the bed for the coming family. The otter is a larger beast than would seem to be com- monly supposed. In weight the dog, or male, PP&acra" commonly turns the scale at from 20 to 25 lb.; 28 Ib. is scarcely an exceptional weight, while one of 40 lb. has been recorded. The body of the 1 Von Mosjvar, Das Thierleben der osterr-ungar Tiefebenen (1897), p. 228. THE CARNIVORA. 63 otter is elongated and sinuous, the head flattened, as is also the tail, the latter being thickest at the root, and having beneath it two fetid glands. The eyes are small and exceedingly bright, the ears short and rounded, the muzzle broad and ornamented with sensitive whiskers, the latter typical of the carnivora. Further, the nostrils are narrow, and close hermetically under water. The snout is so sensitive that a smart tap on it will kill or stun the animal. In colour the soft under-fur is pale grey, shading at the tip to brown ; the longer, coarser fur is of darker hue. The narrowness of the gullet has also attracted notice, and is thought to aid the otter in keeping under water without too frequently rising to breathe. 4. THE SEALS. Our coasts are visited by five seals and the walrus, the latter differing in the position of the hind-limbs and the possession of tusks, overgrown canines without root. The horrors of the Behring Sea butchery, still fresh in the public mind, roused considerable interest in these fur- bearing, fin -footed amphibians. The corn- Persecution mercially useless seals of British estuaries are slain whenever occasion offers, out of regard for their destruction of salmon. For the greater part of the year they subsist on flounders. Though separated from the true carnivora, there are many points of outward resemblance between these crea- tures and the otter, the chief difference lying in the limbs, which in the seals are modified as flippers to suit the requirements of an aquatic existence. Of the breeding season of this group, writers and travellers give various accounts, some species apparently bringing forth their young in the early spring, others in late autumn. One point there seems, however, to be in common between the young of all seals, and that is the whiteness of their fur in the early days or weeks of their 64 MAMMALS. existence, and the curious reluctance with which many of them take to the water until driven to it by their parents. No British seal has either external ears or under-fur, and it is in consequence of the latter deficiency that none has any commercial value whatever. The Common Seal is nowadays confined for the most part to the northern estuaries, though I have twice come across Common solitary examples on the Cornish coast. Not in the ordinary course a strictly migratory species, it nevertheless occasionally finds its way up the river Thames, where it is promptly shot by some riverside loafer, and reappears a few weeks later grinning against an unnatural background from the farther side of a glass case. A similar fate befell one a year or two ago above Conway Bridge in Wales. Harvie-Brown and Buckley l mention the occurrence of this seal in Loch Awe, and quote a case in Loch Suinart in which one took a small coal-fish off a hook.2 The common seal breeds on our northern coast in the Breeding. summer ; one, or at most two, would seem to be produced at a birth, and some females are said to breed only in alternate years. This species is of gregarious habits. ' Fauna of Argyll, p. 21. 2 Ibi(L> p> 24 THE CAENIVORA. 65 The head and face are small, the molar teeth growing Appearance, obliquely for want of room. In colour brown- ie- ish grey with dark-brown spots ; belly lighter and without spots. The Kinged Seal is a rare visitor on our coasts, though sufficiently common among the Norwegian fjords, where Hinged its blowhole is often seen in the young ice. Seal. r^is Species is said to have occurred on our east coast within the last ten years. It does not breed on our coasts. The teeth do not lie obliquely as in the last. The Harp Seal, a large, migratory, and gregarious species, is one of the worst destroyers of salmon. It oc- Harp casionally enters our rivers, having been taken Seal. in j^e Thames and the Severn, and has been once at least recorded from the Irish coast. In colour it is of a dark grey, having on the back a curious black mark, to the supposed form of which it owes its trivial name. The Hooded Seal is named from the bladder-like process over the snout of the male, which, when inflated by the Hooded animal, in either anger or fear, assumes the Seal. form of a hood. This species, which is said to be of polygamous habits, finds its way but rarely to our coasts. The Grey Seal is easily distinguished from the foregoing by its flat skull, and is fairly common on the less fre- quented tracts of the north-British and south-Irish coasts, being well known to breed at the present day among the Hebrides, but not on the mainland.1 I have seen one or Grey two of these seals in the Baltic (Christmas Seal. 1890), but they kept at a safe distance from the boat from which we were shooting wildfowl. The Grey Seal is considered to lack the intelligence that 1 Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Fauna of Argyll, p. 27. E 66 MAMMALS. characterises the rest of the family, a deficiency that is chiefly interesting by reason of its association with the flat skull and expressionless face. The intem°ence grmdmg teet^ are without tubercles. In colour this seal is grey, with numerous small black markings. The Walrus, Morse, or Sea-Cow, has only been recorded in British waters on two or three occasions, yet, like a number of our birds, it is freely claimed as a British subject. Its food consists largely of crustaceans. Its fierce disposition, the theme of so many travellers' tales, must be subject to moods, for Nansen tells of walruses so gentle that he had to strike them on the snout with his stick before they would move. Doubtless Nansen's walruses had not yet benefited by the educating influence of contact with man. The appearance of the walrus is certainly suggestive of ferocity, especially the long tusks and bristling moustache. CHAPTER IV. THE RODENTS. This large and important group, of which four families are represented in our fauna, is easily distinguished from any other by the presence of a pair of curved enamelled incisors in either jaw. These teeth are ever growing and ever wearing down by friction. Cases are recorded in which, owing to either accident or malformation, one pair has grown unchecked into the opposite jaw, soon causing the death of the animal from starvation. These creatures are, from the As vermin. nature of their food, among the worst enemies of the agriculturist and planter, the squirrel ring-barking THE RODENTS. 67 the young trees,1 the rats and voles devastating the crops. Plagues of the latter occur periodically, when the reprisals are enormous, tens of thousands paying the penalty. i. THE SQUIRREL. The Squirrel is certainly the most pleasing of our rodents, its antics in the higher branches of beech or fir tree being extremely fascinating. It appears to be widely distributed over the greater part of these islands, and is extending its range in Scotland, Range. from parts of which it had temporarily disappeared. In the New Forest it is particularly plentiful, and I have more than once seen it in gardens and on bypaths in the very heart of Bournemouth. Unlike its distant connection, the dormouse, the squirrel never falls into a state of torpor, though it is compara- 1 The damage done to trees by squirrels was discussed at some length in the ' Times ' this year (1897), some correspondents giving evidence of their girdling the trunk several feet from the top, while others stated that their gravest offence was eating out the tmds, letting the twigs fall to the ground. 68 MAMMALS. lively inactive in very severe cold. The food of this animal is, more especially in the warm months, exceed- ingly varied, including cherries and other stone fruits, nuts, beech-mast, certain toadstools, and, according to one authority, daffodils, though I never came across an instance of this. True, I once succeeded in inducing a captive squirrel to eat one of these flowers, having read of this strange preference ; but the success of this experiment goes for little, as the animal would in all probability have accepted with equal readiness a - blossom of the Australian lily, such as neither it nor its forebears had ever in the natural course had the chance of tasting. Like all the rodents, the squirrel masticates its food with a peculiarly free movement of the jaws. During the winter, at which season its appetite is less active, the squirrel subsists on nuts which it has stored in holes in trees. In addition to these, its favourite articles of food, the squirrel will also feed on birds and their eggs. This is one of our most active quadrupeds, and, indeed, exercise seems to be essential to its wellbeing. Without, therefore, advocating the caging of so free a creature, In captivity. it is permissible to remark that the much- condemned revolving cages are not in themselves cruel, since without some such arrangement the animals would in all probability get seriously out of condition. It is, however, essential that there should be a stationary dark box, for there are times when, like all beasts and birds in captivity, the squirrel finds the glare of daylight unbearable. The breeding of the squirrel has been the subject of some errors. In point of fact, it presents no great diffi- culty. Its "drey" or "cage" is built in a Breeding. J J . 6 hole, or in a fork, in some beech or fir, and a number of these bulky structures are found in an unoccupied, half -finished condition. The young, three or four in number, are brought forth in summer, and in a comparatively short time they appear to mate and breed in their turn. THE RODENTS. 69 The external features of this little animal are suffici- ently familiar to render any description unnecessary. The arched body, bushy tail, rounded head, and ppearance, promjnent eyes, the ears surmounted by tufts of hair, the long, curved claws in which the animal grasps the refractory nut, — all these are unmis- takably the squirrel's. In colour, which is subject to considerable variation according to season, it is usually reddish above and white on the underparts. In winter there is a good deal of grey in the coat. The tail has in some cases been observed to be of a creamy yellow at all seasons, and not, as Bell had it, in late summer only. During the breeding season the ear -tufts are shed, and are not renewed until the late autumn. The Squirrel is a rapid swimmer, and Mr J. G. Millais has in his latest work l given a striking picture of its action in the water. 2. THE DORMOUSE. The dormouse is widely distributed over the south of England, though apparently unknown in the Highlands and in Ireland. Though physically far nearer the mice, this little animal bears in its general mode of existence, in its choice of food and methods of eating and storing it, a marked resemblance to the squirrel, the chief differences in habit being found in the nocturnal activity of the dor- mouse and in its regular hibernation. For, Hibernation. ,., , . . . , . . . unlike the squirrel, it slumbers intermittently for almost six months out of the twelve, though the first mild day suffices to awaken it, when it promptly feeds on its stored nuts, and slumbers again. Though October is the season at which most dormice fall asleep, it is observed that those of the year go into retirement somewhat later. When awakened artificially from its slumber, the dormouse becomes very active for a short period, then relapses into slumber, nor does such interference usually have fatal 1 British Deer arid their Horns, p. 44. 70 MAMMALS. results, as in the case of bats. The two degrees of torpor are in fact quite different. Physically, save in colour, the dormouse bears but slight resemblance to the squirrel, the most striking difference being in the poverty of its tail. It is, however, in more reliable characters that the student -** has to seek the dis- tinction between them and the affin- ity which the mem- bers of the present family have with the mice. The food of the dormouse resem- bles, as already stated, that of the squirrel, but Mr Hart- ing has noted an interesting difference in the fact that it is in addition insectivorous. Although it con* sumes, as implied by its specific name, large quantities of hazel-nuts, other nuts of various kinds seem to be equally acceptable. The nest is made in a hole in the ground or in some tree; and dormice are known to have appropriated the nests of jays and like birds, and to rear their young in them, using the nest at a later date for the winter slumber, in which, however, the animal is thickly enveloped in a covering of dry grasses. The young, three or four in number, are born in spring, and some writers are of opinion that a second litter is pro- duced in the autumn, at which season the dormice are very fat previous to their retirement. In colouring, the dormouse is not unlike the squirrel, being reddish above and white on the under- parts. The ears, proportionally smaller than in the squirrel, are never tufted. Food. Nest and breeding. THE KODENTS. 71 3. THE RATS, MICE, AND VOLES. The Black Rat is frequently spoken of as the "British" rat, implying that it occurred in these islands from the Black Bat earliest times. Such, however, is far from or Batton. the truth, as thi^ species was undoubtedly, as geologists are able to tell us, of comparatively late intro- duction. It would appear to have come, like its more Introduction powerful antagonist, from the East, travelling into these vid the Continent, the period of its arrival islands. jn these islands being in all probability about the end of the fourteenth century. Its stay has been short, indeed, for within little more than five hundred years of the date commonly assigned for its introduction it was already becoming scarce, disappearing before the superior strength of its brown relative. Now- adays, it only lingers in a comparatively few towns, and, so at least it is said, in some London cellars in the neighbourhood of St Paul's, where one was taken, I believe, as recently as 1895. It is also said to hold its own in Sark and others of the Channel Islands; Stockton-on-Tees is, according to Roebuck, one of its last strongholds in Yorkshire; and Sir Herbert Maxwell has caught it in Galloway farmyards. Though associated, like all vermin, in the popular mind with all that is dirty and offensive, few animals are of cleanlier habits, for, like other rats, the present species is always combing its fur and keeping itself sweet. The black rat is prolific like the rest of its family, the female producing during the year an aggregate of from thirty to fifty young, each litter numbering mg> seven or eight. The roomy nest of leaves and debris is used as the nursery of successive families, the first of which are themselves parents ere their younger brothers of the same year have seen the light. 72 MAMMALS. The food of the black rat is varied, though its preference is unquestionably for vegetable matter. The rats need little description, their typical appearance being too familiar. In colour the present species has a good deal of grey in its fur, though its common name ppears ice, serves ^0 distinguish it from the other species. The short lower jaw of the black rat gives the face a shrew-like expression. The ears are large and naked. The tail, longer than the head and body, is nearly naked and ringed with scales. The feet are plantigrade, the hind- feet with five well-developed toes, the forefeet with four toes and a rudimentary clawed thumb. The Brown Rat, easily distinguished by its superior size, is the rat commonly met with in this country, where it has all but ousted its smaller black relative, just Brown Bat. . . , . } J. as, in the Antipodes, it has driven to extinc- tion the possibly apocryphal Maori rat of New Zealand. It is wrongly called the Hanoverian or Norway rat, and would appear to have been introduced at the end of the seventeenth century. Its food is still more varied than that of the last species, as it is not only carnivorous at certain seasons, but is also known to relapse on very slight provocation into cannibalism. Game, fish, young birds, eggs, frogs, snails, truffles, and grain, are among the articles on which it commonly feeds ; and it is also known to gnaw hard substances from which it could not possibly derive any nourishment, in the endeavour, possibly, to keep its teeth worn to the proper level. It is a powerful swimmer, and I remember seeing one night in Sydney Harbour a large number of these rats leaving a ship, having in all probability exhausted the food supply. If anything, this species is even more prolific than the last, as many as twelve having often been ingi recorded in one litter, though the number of THE RODENTS. 73 litters in the year has not, so far as I know, been satis- factorily determined. This rat is widely distributed in these islands, there being a black race from the east coast of Ireland. It is this race (M. hibemicus) that occurs, according to Harvie- Brown and Buckley,1 in the Hebrides, where the true black rat is unknown. This race has a con- "anse' spicuous white patch on the chest. Besides its superior size, this rat is easily distinguished from the last by its lighter fur, broader muzz^e' sh°rter ears> an