Che Zoologist— June, 1866. 241 



cannol be so easily observed as those of birds, nor specimens of many 

 species be readily procured in any particular district, yet they 

 constitute a most interesting portion of our Fauna, the complete elu- 

 cidation of which is yet a disideratum in our scientific literature. The 

 bats, shrews, seals and mice, are the groups in which discoveries more 

 probably remain to be made."— (p. 309). To this it may be added that 

 local lists, which some of your readers might be able to supply, are 

 much wanted to show their geographical distribution. 



Squirrel. — I was pleased to find, in looking over the above work, 

 that Mr. Macgillivray confirms ray observation (Zool. 9483), that the 

 squirrel does not hybernate so completely as is often supposed. He 

 says, " When the cold weather commences it becomes less active, and 

 often dozes (or days in its retreat ; but it does not become completely 

 torpid ; and I have seen it abroad in the midst of a most severe snow- 

 storm. If the weather be comparatively mild, it exhibits its usual 

 activity, feeding on bark and twigs." — (p. 232). 



Rabbit. — These destructive little beasts have increased to a 

 surprising extent throughout the west of Scotland within the last 

 twenty or thirty years. Before that time they were, I believe, almost 

 nnknown in many places where they are now only kept in check by 

 dilligent shooting and trapping. Their numbers and mode of life 

 render their habits more easily observed than those of many other 

 species. When the female is about to bring forth she retires to a 

 separate burrow, which has very seldom more than one entrance j 

 whereas the old rabbits like always to have a loop-hole for escape, often 

 hidden by long grass and generally excavated from within, so that no 

 heap of thrown-ont earth may betray its whereabouts. Here she 

 makes a soft and warm bed of her own fur, and when the young are 

 born she covers over the mouth of the burrow, and visits them only by 

 night, as may be ascertained by marking the soil heaped over the 

 entrance. The number of young in each litter is usually five to seven, 

 rarely nine, but I have known one instance of eleven being found. As 

 these wild rabbits breed at very short intervals (some say as often as 

 eight or nine times in the year), and as they come to maturity at a 

 vjery early age, their rapid increase, when undisturbed, can readily be 

 understood. On the moors many rabbits have no regular burrows, but 

 live in runs among long and matted heather. At Cadzow there is an 

 old oak, whose gnarled stem rises at an angle of about forty-five 

 degrees ; the hollow trunk is inhabited by a number of rabbits ; they 

 have an entrance near the root, and when hunted with ferrets they 



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