THE MAMMALIA OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



By J. LEWIS BONHOTE, M.A., F.Z.g. 



THE county of Cambridgeshire cannot be said to have a 

 rich fauna so far as the Mammalia are concerned, and although 

 the number of species actually recorded might compare favour- 

 ably with those in other counties, yet the number of those 

 species which may be said to be truly indigenous is compara- 

 tively small. 



The absence of large tracts of wood is probably no small 

 factor in this scarcity ; most of the larger animals, such as 

 the Badger, the Marten and the Fox as well as many species 

 of bats and smaller rodents being only able to maintain 

 their existence by the shelter and food afforded them in a 

 woodland county. 



Roughly speaking, the northern half of Cambridgeshire 

 is flat and woodless, with a few elevations, such as the 

 Isle of Ely, standing up from the surrounding level of the 

 reclaimed Fenland; towards the south and west the county 

 becomes more undulating and wooded, but the district is too 

 small for many rarities to have been found or recorded from it. 



The scarcest mammal to which we can lay claim is a bat 

 (Myotis myotis), a specimen of which was captured alive about 

 fifteen years ago at Girton. This species, abundant on the 

 Continent, is only known in England, to which it must be 

 considered an extremely scarce straggler, from this and one 

 previous example taken in the British Museum grounds at 

 Bloomsbury. Of other scarce bats, we may note the Barbastelle 



