The Annals 



of 



Scottish Natural History 



NO. 57] 1906 [JANUARY 



ON A COLLECTION OF MICE (MUS HIRTENSIS 

 AND J/. MURALIS) FROM ST. KILDA. 



By G. E. H. BARRETT-HAMILTON, B.A., F.Z.S. 



MY friend Mr. Eagle Clarke has placed in my hands a set 

 of 24 mice obtained at St. Kilda by Mr. James Waterston 

 in June 1905, with a request that I should examine and 

 report upon them to the Scottish " Annals." I do so with 

 great pleasure because in the first place it is always satis- 

 factory to see any critical or rare forms in series, and it is 

 in the second place doubly satisfactory to find that the 

 examination of such a series reveals nothing that is not 

 confirmatory of previous work. 



The history of the St. Kilda mice is now well known. 

 Visitors to that island had long been aware of the existence 

 of some sort of mice there (see for instance Seton's " St. 

 Kilda, Past and Present," 1878, p. 132), but Mr. J. Steele 

 Elliott appears to have been the first naturalist to collect and 

 preserve specimens of them (see " Journ. Birm. N. H. Soc." 

 Apr. 1895, and " Zool." 1895, pp. 281 and 426) and to note 

 that they appeared different from ordinary mice. Finding 

 Mr. Steele Elliott's specimens in the British Museum, I was 

 led to study them, my friend the late Henry Evans was the 

 means of procuring a few additional specimens, and the 

 57 B 



