4572 Tue ZooLocist—Avueust, 1875. 
the captive with various other items, and though they were eaten after a 
time, nothing tempts the mouse so rapidly out of his hiding-place as a fly. 
So far it will eat flies almost to the rejection of everything else. The 
specimen alluded to was caught in the fields. We have but two species 
in Ireland (Mus musculus and M. sylvaticus)—no authentic record of Mus 
messorius hitherto that I have been able to trace, though its detection is 
not improbable. Bell indeed, in his last edition, gives it as Irish on 
Kinahan’s authority; but I fear some error here, as Kinahan records it 
nowhere himself. Bell's ‘ Quadrupeds’—standard work and all though it 
be—is far from being infallible on Irish Natural History, as I have shown 
in a previous number of the ‘ Zoologist’: careless editing has spoiled what 
would otherwise be really a good book.—Richard M. Barrington; Fassaroe, 
Bray, County Wicklow, July 12, 1875. 
Grampus captured in the River Tamar.—The following paragraph, which 
perhaps you may like to copy in the ‘ Zoologist,’ was cut from the ‘ Western 
Morning News’:—* A fine fish of the grampus species was captured in the 
Tamar off Cargreen on Saturday (June 19th). It was observed swimming 
about as though injured, and four boats went off and took it in tow, but it 
swam away with the whole of them and nearly capsized one with its tail. 
After firing four shots at it—one of small shot which did not penetrate, and 
three bullets—it was disabled and brought on shore. It measures fourteen 
feet in length, and is in girth seven feet and a quarter before the dorsal fin. 
Its tail is exactly four feet wide, and its mouth, lined with a fine cage of 
teeth, measures twenty inches. It is calculated to weigh over a ton, and 
took about a score of men to haul it on the quay, where it lies at present. 
The fish is now being exhibited at a small charge, and the visitors are very 
numerous.” I examined the above-mentioned animal, and found it to be 
the true grampus or killer (Delphinus Orca), and fully as large as stated in 
the paragraph. The teeth were eleven on each side of either jaw, the five 
front ones being worn down nearly even with the gums, which I believe is 
generally the case in old animals of this species ; the rest were round, rather 
curved, and apparently loose to the touch. I was informed by some of the 
men that it was disabled by a gun loaded with marbles instead of bullets, 
as mentioned above. Its skin is now in the course of preservation John 
Gatcombe. 
Food for Pet Whales.—A rather amusing incident concerning a species 
of Cetacean occurred to me when in Somersetshire a few years since. Being 
iu the neighbourhood of Bridgwater, and reading in a local paper that a 
young whale had been captured at the mouth of the River Parret and taken 
alive to Bridgwater for exhibition, I lost no time in repairing to that place 
to make inquiry, in the hope that I might be the means of having it for- 
warded to one of the tanks in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, but 
found—not much to my surprise—that it had been dead and cut up for 
