264 ARVICOLA ARENICOLA. 



Naturgeschichte der Saugethiere Deutschlands, 1857, p. 372, 

 Blasius comes to a quite different conclusion, for he said : 

 •s>Arvicola arenicola de Selys stimmt nach einera Original- 

 2>exemplare, welches ich der freundlichen Mittheilung de 

 » Selys verdanke, im Gebiss und in der Ohr- und Fuss- 

 »bildung ganz mit A. arvalis überein, und kann also be- 

 » stimmt nicht mit Mus agrestis L. oder mit Lemnus in- 

 7>sularis Nilss. zusammengestellt werden". What is here 

 Blasius' meaning? Had de Selys forwarded to him one of 

 the typical specimens of arenicola from the collection of 

 the Leyden Museum? Mr. A. A. v. Bemmelen (Bouwstoffen 

 voor eene Fauna van Nederland, derde deel, 1866, pp. 241 

 and 242) shared Blasius' opinion. Nowhere since 1866 the 

 name arenicola has been used or cited in zoological litera- 

 ture; so that as I wrote in 1881 my paper on the men- 

 tioned Arvicola-ST^ecimeüs in our Museum, I had no notion 

 whatsoever, that I did what one calls in France: »enfon- 

 cer une porte ouverte"! Moreover Blasius was at that time 

 in Leyden and he (apparently forgotten that he, some 

 years before, had in his hands one of our specimens called 

 by de Selys arenicola) agreed with me in bringing these 

 ^/•wo^a-specimens to ratt/ceps Blasius! In the »Sitzungs- 

 Berichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde, 1899, 

 p. 58" A. Nehring stated: »Herr Dr. Jentink war so freund- 

 lich mir den Schadel eiues dieser Exemplare (sc. ratticeps) 

 zur Ansicht zugehen zu lassen, so dass ich mich durch 

 eigene Anschauung von seiner Zugehörigkeit zu Arv. rat- 

 ticeps überzeugeu konnte". In the very paper Nehring 

 described some ylruz'co/a-specimens from Brandenburg as a 

 variety of ratticeps, viz. Stimmingi. Mr. Miller studied with 

 me our m^^ecé/)s-specimens and, after having extracted the 

 (incomplete) skulls, we made out that they did not belong 

 to ratticeps at all, they might be perhaps Stimmingii Nehring, 

 and I registered them under that name accordingly. 



This may be called the nomenclatural part; I think 

 the historical part now following bears much more interest. 



In the years 1836 and 1887 the crop was devastated 



Notes from the Leyden IVEuseum, Vol. XXIX. 



