The Zoologist — December, 1876. 5177 



which are placed in abnormally favourable conditions for their 

 multiplication. If in their wild state dangers have to be en- 

 countered which to a certain extent diminish their productiveness, 

 yet these very obstacles tend to strengthen their vital force. It 

 is said that diphtheria is apt to break out among domesticated 

 ostriches, and as the number of these mounts up annually we are 

 apprehensive lest this complaint may sometimes assume the 

 severity of " an ostrich disease," to the loss and disappointment of 

 those who are devoting themselves to ostrich rearing. 



The work of which we give this short notice is appropriately 

 illustrated with pictures of various modes of ostrich hunting, and 

 with figures, beautifully drawn and engraved, of the ostrich, 

 rhea, emu, cassowary and apteryx. It is just the sort of book 

 to give as a Christmas present to a young naturalist. Had 

 ostrich farming existed when we were young, and had such 

 an interesting account of it as that supplied by Messrs. Halting 

 and de Mosenthal been put into our hands, we feel quite 

 certain that we should have been fired with a desire to emigrate 

 at once to the Cape Colony in order to join in what would 

 have seemed to us a most fascinating method of making our 

 fortune. 



Murray A. Mathew. 



November 11, 1876. 



Black Water Rat. — On the 27th of October an adult water vole (Arvicola 

 amphibius) was trapped at Keswick, near Norwich, in which the entire fur 

 was of a deep black, but with a slight silvery reflection on some of the 

 longer hairs of the back ; it was caught iu a garden, into which it had 

 probably strayed from a neighbouring meadow. — J. II. Gurney ; Northrepps, 

 Norivich. 



[A black variety of this species, described by Pallas and other continental 

 naturalists, has long been known. According to Macgillivray, who described 

 it under the name of Arvicola ater, this variety is very common in Banff- 

 shire and Aberdeenshire. We have seen specimens from Cambridgeshire, 

 and, if our memory serves, from Sussex also, where two or three were 

 obtained on the mill-stream at Ratham, near Chichester, by Mr. W. Jeffery. 

 Apropos of varieties of the water vole, three white specimens of this species 

 have come under our notice, obtained at Newbury, Brighton, and Beading 

 respectively. — Ed.] 



