NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM. 165 
Pr 
7. V. prIpistRELLUS, Schreb. Common Bart. PIPiIsTRELLE. 
Fuirrermouse. Rexemouse. (A. S. areran.) 
“ Twizell Fauna,” P. J. Selby. “ Darlington,” W. Back- 
house. ‘‘ Castle Eden,” Rev. H. B. Tristram. 
Abundant throughout our district, and may be seen in almost 
every month of the year, if the weather be at all favourable. 
The common bat of the Continent is V. murinus, which led 
many English writers to give that name to the Pipistrelle. The 
true murinus has as yet been met with, in England, only in the 
Gardens of the British Museum, a somewhat suspicious locality, 
as it may easily have been introduced accidentally in packing 
cases, or by design. 
OrpvErR II. INSECTIVORA, Owen. 
FAMILY I. TALPIDA. 
I, TALPA, Linn. 
1 T. vunearts, Zinn. Morte. Movipis-warpe. 
T. europea, Linn., Sys. Nat. 
The common name of this little animal in the North of Eng- 
a pure and scarcely modified Anglo- 
Saxon name, derived from molde, soil, and weorpan, to throw or 
land is “ Mouldie-warp;” 
turn up. 
It is abundant everywhere in our district, and a cream- 
coloured variety is not unfrequently met with. Selby notices 
the capture of one at Twizell, and very recently Mr. Thomas 
Thompson has recorded, in the Zoologist, (Feb. 1862) the 
occurrence of two specimens at Winlaton. A white or silver 
grey variety, which appears to be less common, has also occurred 
at Twizell. A curious superstition prevails in the county of 
Durham, that the capture of a white mole upon a farm foretells 
the death of the head of the household. The Reverend G. C. 
Abbes tells us, in illustration of this, that “the son of a small 
farmer near Sunderland, himself a man of middle age, and tired 
of waiting for his inheritance, offered a considerable reward to 
the mole catcher if he could succeed in trapping a white mole on 
the farm; after some little time the man brought the desired 
