130 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
In the spring of 1890 a colony established themselves in 
a piece of rough, sandy ground by the public road near 
where a small stream enters the sea at Gosford Bay. For 
fully a month I passed the spot twice a day, and was much 
struck with the want of fear which they displayed, several 
always sitting unconcernedly about the entrances to their 
burrows while vehicles and pedestrians moved past within 
a few yards; indeed, so little notice did they take of people 
passing by, that Mr Eagle Clarke knocked one over with his 
walking-stick. 
The black variety—the Arvicola ater of M acCilliveag =n 
not common, but occurs from time to time in every county. 
I have notes concerning examples taken in Berwickshire, 
Roxburghshire, the three Lothians, Stirlingshire, Perthshire, 
and Fife. The Fife specimens, which as usual were small 
animals, were captured near Colinsburgh, where the form 
appears to be not uncommon. In the Highlands it is 
decidedly more numerous than in the Lowlands. 
ARVICOLA AGRESTIS De Selys. FIELD VOLE. 
The Field Vole is abundant and generally distributed from 
the coast-line to the most inland localities, living among 
rough grass in meadows, young plantations, moors, and hill- 
pastures alike. Formerly I was in the habit of looking upon 
it as everywhere more abundant than the next species, but 
this view has not been borne out by my recent investigations. 
In the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh, for instance, 
I have trapped three Glareolus for one of Agrestis, and I am 
inclined to think that the former is likewise at the present 
time the commoner anima! in many other parts of the fertile 
belt of country bordering the shores of the Forth, and 
probably the same may be said of the valleys of the Tay 
and the Tweed. But the moment we reach the hills and the 
moorlands, Agrestis becomes the commoner, and is in many 
districts apparently alone present. A number of years ago, 
when my home was at Macbiehill in Peeblesshire, it was 
very common there, and Mr J. Thomson, who has sent 
me a specimen, tells me it is abundant about Stobo in 
