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 ]\Ir 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. 



