Natural History. 51 



scarcely any game was reared and foxes were plentiful. Several 

 foxhound puppies were " walked " by the farmers, whose wives 

 complained, not only of the quantity of bread and milk they 

 consumed but of the devastations caused by the foxes amongst 

 their poultry even in broad daylight, whilst those people living 

 near the coverts could hear them barking at night and see the 

 cubs playing about in the early morning. In winter, the 

 hounds in full cry afforded frequent excitement for the labourers 

 and school children. 



All this is changed : the foxhound puppies have long since 

 vanished, as have the foxes, with the exception of a few 

 outsiders attracted by the game ; they are not encouraged to 

 stay and breed. 



The present keeper has given me some interesting informa- 

 tion about some of the quadrupeds and birds, which I will 

 transcribe in his own words. He says : u I have never seen or 

 heard of a badger at Hatton. I trapped a marten in Hatton 

 Wood about 15 years ago ; I have never heard of another one 

 at Hatton since that time. We had a polecat here some four 

 or five years ago ; it was caught in the rabbit traps at Panton 

 shortly after we had seen it. I know of four kinds of mice 

 the two kinds that live in the fields, the indoor mouse, and the 

 dormouse. One of the field mice is reddish, with a long tail 

 and a dark bright eye (Mus syivatica). The other one is a 

 dark mouse, what we call the grass mouse ; you may see plenty 

 of them in the summer in the hay field ; I do not remember 

 seeing one of them at any other time of the year j they have a 

 short face and rather large head, with a short tail ; colour very 

 much the same as the house mouse ; it is much bigger and 

 heavier looking than any of the others (^rvlcola pratansis}. 

 The dormouse I have seen twice ; once in Chamber's Wood 

 when shooting, two of them were picked up together in a 

 sleeping condition ; if I remember right they were found in a 

 nest of dead leaves ; the other I saw in Hatton Wood. We 

 have had a lot of stoats this summer (1891)." 



In February, 1890, I saw a white stoat with a black tail run 

 from under some large trees across a field to a sunk fence in 

 the middle of the day. There was always a pair of bats about 

 the ivy-covered Rectory, probably Vesperugo pipistullus ; they 

 were to be seen at dark from March to November, and 

 occasionally in winter in very mild weather. 



The hedgehog is not yet quite extinct, though the keepers 

 trap and otherwise slay a few every year. I once had the 



