278 FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 



thrush breaks up a snail on a stone, it ate it. Going to the 

 sundial, we found on the grass below a fore and hind wing of 

 Tnphana pronuba, the large yellow under- wing moth. Probably 

 the other wings were there, but it was getting rather too dark to 

 see them. To witness such an exhibition is very unusual, 

 which makes it seem worth recording. Had the wings merely 

 been seen in the morning the destruction of the moth would 

 certainly have been attributed to a bat (N. M. R.). 



NOTES ON MAMMALS. 



NOTE ON ROE DEER. Several Roe Deer have been found 

 of late years in coverts in W. Dorset and S. Somerset, and I 

 have observed that they are becoming much more common, 

 especially this year, than formerly in the district round Crew- 

 kerne and Chard. I trust covert owners will encourage and 

 preserve them (E. S. R.). 



DORMOUSE. One found coiled up in nest on Mar. i4th 

 (D. C., CHILDE OKEFORD). 



RATS ATTACKING RABBITS. Mr. Curme's note ("Proc." 

 XXIV., 182) on a rat seen killing a rabbit reminds me of some 

 unrecorded observations of my own. On each of two summer 

 evenings in 1901 I witnessed, near Corfe Castle, a murderous 

 attack made by a rat on a young rabbit. In the one case the 

 rat, on realising my presence close at hand, released its hold of the 

 rabbit, which it had only just seized, and ran off; whilst in the 

 other I killed both combatants with one shot, and found that the 

 rat a doe measured 9 inches, and the rabbit lof inches from 

 the tip of the nose, along the back, to the root of the tail. The 

 rat's modus operandim each instance was to leap on to the rabbit's 

 back from behind and cling there, burying its teeth in the flesh : 

 whether it usually shifts its position forward and kills the rabbit 

 by biting it in the back of the neck, or waits until its victim falls 

 exhausted, I have not been able to ascertain. I occasionally 

 find the remains of young rabbits, which appear to me to have 

 been almost certainly killed by rats. 



