356 MUSCARDINID/E— MUSCARDINUS 



(Millais) ; Surrey (Dalgliesh, Zoologist, 1906, 172; 1908, 182); Devon 

 (Rope, Zoologist, 1885, 201-213, a very useful article); and Cornwall 

 (Clark) ; but this may be due to the demand for captives. 



In Essex it is widely distributed on suitable ground and common 

 right up to the southern banks of the Stour (Laver), but unknown 

 north of that river, being found only in the west (Tuck, MS.), and most 

 commonly in the south-west, of Suffolk (Laver, MS.) ; Rope records 

 it from near Ipswich, but on slender evidence. It is even scarcer in 

 Norfolk, where, although several times mentioned 1 between 1830 and 

 1840, Southwell was unable to report its recent occurrence, except in 

 the south-eastern parishes of Gillingham, Geldestone, and Stockton. 

 In these it is common, but there was an undoubted introduction from 

 Surrey about 1844, from which the local colony probably sprung. 



Having regard to its undoubted scarcity in the neighbouring 

 counties, the evidence is against its having been recently indigenous 

 to Norfolk. It is scarcely better known in Lincoln ; Cordeaux, 

 although not denying its occurrence, informed Rope (op. cit.) that he 

 had never met with it in the county ; the sole record is that of Rudkin 

 {Field, 24th May 1884, 702), who reported it from woods in the south- 

 west, especially between Grantham and Bourn. Rudkin's observation 

 is supported by Bolam's statement {in lit.), that in the years 1874 to 

 1877 he used occasionally to see dormice about Uppingham, Rutland. 



In Leicester Browne reported it as rare ; in Nottingham Whitaker 

 could only point to two colonies in a single wood (Rope, op. cit.), 

 and Lowe informs me that there is no specimen in the town museum ; 

 for Cambridge a single nest only is known, taken in 1883 near New- 

 market (Rope); but these three counties and Huntingdon must surely 

 contain some dormice, since the animal is known in Northampton 

 (Lilford, Zoologist, 1885, 257 ; a specimen in the British Museum is 

 from Thornhaugh, between Stamford and Peterborough), and it is 

 plentiful in the neighbouring counties to the south. In Bedford Steele 

 Elliot writes me that its presence is doubtful, and that, although 

 reported from woods near Milton Bryant by Woods in 1856 (see 

 Zoologist, 1885, 204), it must be extremely uncommon, even if it 

 occurs at all. In Derby it is reported to be rare (Jourdain) ; while in 

 Cheshire, perhaps, in correspondence with the scarcity of hazels, 

 it is rare except in the extreme south, where it is more frequently 



1 The brothers Paget (Nat. Hist, of Great Yarmouth, 1834, 2) stated that it "is 

 occasionally seen in small woods"; J. M[acGillivray] in a "Sketch of the Natural 

 History of the Neighbourhood of Norwich " {Edinb. Journ. Nat. Hist, ii., February 

 1839, 3-4), named it "among the less common quadrupeds . . . these I saw but 

 seldom" ; and Southwell was informed that it was known about 1835 to 1845. But 

 Lubbock (Fauna of Norfolk, 1845), although accepting the authority of the Pagets, 

 was unable to confirm the statement, nor was Southwell (op. cit, ed. of 1879, n ; 

 also Field, 29th March 1884, 447) after twenty years' observation and enquiry. 



