A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



to a bright patch. The tail was distinctly tipped with 

 white. Another buff-coloured variety, from Wanlip 

 Lane, reached the museum through Mr. A. Merrall 

 in 1 86 1. One, of a curious pale silver-grey colour, 

 the first observed in the county, from South 

 Croxton, was presented to the museum in 1902 by 

 the Rev. F. E. Horwood. The latest record is a 

 ' perfectly white mole ' 4 captured at Hathern. 



i o. Common Shrew. Sorex araneus, Linn. 



Resident and generally distributed. Harley re- 

 marked upon the great numbers found dead every 

 autumn, in pathways near farms and outbuildings a 

 fact well known, but which has not yet, I believe, 

 been satisfactorily explained. Mr. W. Whitaker, of 

 Wistow Grange, informed me in September, 1885, 

 that a man named Storer had a white shrew, killed 

 at Market Bosworth. 



Mr. Horn, writing in 1906, said that two had 

 been found dead in his house recently, which he 

 assumed had been killed and brought in by the cats. 



1 1 . Water-Shrew. Neomysfodiens, Pallas. 



Bell Crossopus fodlens. 



Harley wrote : ' Not common. Occasionally 

 met with on the banks of water-courses and drains in 

 the meadow-lands near LoughboroV The late 

 Mr. Widdowson wrote in February, 1885 : 'I know 

 one locality they frequented a few years ago namely, 

 Sysonby, about a mile from Melton.' Mr. F. Bates 

 told me in 1885 that he had found them some years 

 before at Narborough. Mr. J. S. Ellis informed me 

 in 1885 that some five-and-twenty years previously, 

 when he lived at Glenfield Lodge, he remembered 

 one day seeing a water-shrew swimming and diving 

 in a small pond, endeavouring to capture a frog, but 

 although successful in bringing it to the bank half a 

 dozen times, was unable to drag it out. Mr. W. H. 

 Thomson has noticed the water-shrew in a brook 

 which runs past Stoughton Grange, close to Leicester. 

 He appears to know the animal well, as he says : 

 ' It had its habitat in a small hole in the bank. They 

 were called water-mice by us.' 



CARNIVORA 



12. Fox. Vulfes vu/pes, Linn. 

 Bell Vulpes vulgari.'. 



Resident and generally distributed. The following 

 incident, related by my friend the late Dr. Macaulay, 

 of Kibworth, occurred on the farm of Mr. J. Perkins 

 at Laughton, who vouches for the facts : A labourer 

 at work in a ploughed field saw a fox come 

 through the hedge with a rabbit in his mouth, pro- 

 ceeding some distance into the field he laid the rabbit 

 down, and scratching a hole placed the rabbit therein, 

 covered it over, and then departed. When the fox 

 was gone the man went to the place and took up 

 the rabbit. About an hour afterwards he saw two 

 foxes come into the field and go straight to the spot 

 where the rabbit had been buried. One of them 

 began to search for it, being joined in this 

 operation by the other. After a few minutes had 

 thus been spent in fruitless search, the two foxes fell 

 upon each other and a fierce battle ensued until the 

 spectator approached the combatants and separated 

 them. Probably the first fox had invited his friend 

 to dine, and the latter, thinking himself the victim of 

 a hoax, endeavoured to be revenged on his friend by 

 thrashing him. The late Mr. R. Widdowson, a 

 well-known taxidermist of Melton Mowbray, writing 

 to me in February, 1885, said that he had lately 

 set up a fox shot in his neighbourhood whilst 

 attempting to carry away three large fowls at once. 

 That the fox and badger will live on terms of 

 amity one with the other is borne out by the late 

 Mr. Alfred Ellis, who recorded this as occurring at 

 ' The Brand ' for at least six years. 5 This also occurs 

 at Hungerton ' Foxholes,' near Ingarsby. 



I saw at Pinchen's in February, 1891, a mounted 

 specimen in which all the under parts, which are 

 usually white, were of a sooty black. 



Mr. W. J. Horn, writing to me at the beginning of 

 1907, says : ' A vixen not long since laid up her cubs 

 in a stick-heap in the town of Market Harborough. 



4 Daily Mail, 18 Jan. 1907. 



5 Zoo/. (1880), pp. 5-9. 



In August last I was present when a field of wheat 

 was being cut five foxes were put out.' 



1 3. Pine-Marten. Mustela martes, Linn. 

 Bell Martes abietum. 

 Locally, Marten-Cat. 



Now quite extinct. Harley wrote of this 

 species (which he called Mustela foina 6 ) : ' Annually 

 becoming rare. Occurred a few years since in the 

 woods at Gopsall. The writer had an opportunity 

 afforded him some years since of examining a female 

 and young of this species of mustela, which had been 

 captured on Earl Howe's estate, situate on the western 

 side of the county. The occurrence of the marten 

 in any district around Leicester must be considered 

 rare and unusual. Affects decayed and hollow trees 

 in which it brings forth its young. Preys much on 

 young birds and small Mammalia.' I can find no 

 recent notices of its capture in Leicestershire ; there 

 is, however, an old specimen in the Leicester Museum, 

 supposed to be from Wellesborough, and another I 

 had an opportunity of examining at Bradgate House 

 is reported by Mr. H. A. Payne, of Enville, to have 

 been killed at Bradgate about 1868 by Thomas 

 Mennell. The late Mr. R. Widdowson wrote : 

 ' When I first came to reside in Melton, I went over 

 to Leicester several times and used to call on a 

 Mr. Pickard, a hairdresser who lived in the little lane 

 leading out of the market-place, just above the 

 White Swan Inn. He was a taxidermist also, and 

 I well remember seeing some martens which he had 

 just stuffed, an adult female and two young ones 

 which he told me were killed a few miles away, I 

 believe at Bradgate. He had the adult a long time 

 and used to exhibit it in his window, and was very 

 fond of talking about it, declaring that it was brought 

 to him alive. I also remember hearing that one was 



6 M. foina, of Linnaeus, Gmelin, Erxleben, Jenyns, &c., is, 

 however, the continental beech-marten, and, despite the records 

 of the older British naturalists, has never occurred in Britain, 

 but has been confused with the pine-marten, which was at one 

 time considered the rarer animal. (See R. Alston, in Prof. 

 Zoo/. Soc. 1879 ; also Zoo/. 1879, pp. 441 8.) 



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