190 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of Devon. Mr. R. P. Nicholls says he has not had one sent to him during 

 the eighteen years he has been at Kingsbridge. Mr. Henry Balfour kindly 

 wrote to inform me that a man who had been master gunner at Dartmouth 

 Castle, had more than once seen Polecats in the neighbourhood west of the 

 Dart Estuary — I suppose within the last few years. Mr. T. Jacobs, of 

 Newton Abbot, says that the last specimen he received to mount was from 

 the neighbourhood of Moreton, on the borders of Dartmoor, but he had not 

 had any for the last ten years. Coming nearer Exeter, I find that the last 

 date at which I saw one alive was on August 30th, 1852, near Topsham. 

 J. Truscott says the last he knows of was killed on Lady Rolle's property near 

 Woodbury, and I saw the skull of one nailed to a tree near the gamekeeper's 

 cottage at Woodbury Castle, in the spring of 1882. The animal must have 

 been dead a good many years, as the skull was quite clean and white. I offered 

 a reward for a specimen, but as none has been sent me I suppose this 

 animal is e.xtinct in that part of the county. JMr. C. D. Heathcote, of 

 Raleigh, near Bideford, tells me that one was killed at Northam, in that 

 parish, about 1853, but he has not heard of any occurrence since then. It 

 seems only too probable that in North and East, and perhaps in South 

 Devon, the Polecat is now e.xtinct, but that a very few still huger in 

 the extreme western portion of the county. — W. S. M. D 'Urban (Albert 

 Memorial Museum, Exeter). 



Nest of the Harvest Mouse. — During the autumn of 1883, especially 

 harvest time, several nests of the Harvest Mouse, Mus rnessorius, were 

 taken by myself, mostly from barley-fields, being placed upon the laid barley. 

 Almost all contained young ones, numbering from six to eight, and it was 

 surprising to see how eight fair-sized mice could possibly live in a nest 

 hardly as large as an orange. I look them the first time last year, and 

 was surprised to find them in such numbers. — E. Cuarles Moor (Great 

 Bealings, Woodbridge, Suffolk). 



BIRDS. 



Migratory Birds on the Yorkshire Moors. — The Chiffchaff was first 

 heard last year on April 2nd, and left us about Sept. Ist. The Wheatear 

 was very abundant on the edges of the moors, and was reported to me on 

 April 1st. At the same time the Stonechat, Saxicola rubicola, appeared 

 on the lower parts of the moors, where the furze and brambles abound. 

 These signs of awakening spring induced me to take a walk across the 

 moors to " Bill's-o'-Jacks," so well known to all lovers of nature in this part 

 of Yorkshire, and I was well repaid. On April 14th I set out on my stroll, 

 and in a garden close to the moors I noticed the Common Whitethroat 

 performing its peculiar undulating flight to and from a small currant tree 

 in search of insects. The Blackcap is rather scarce hereabouts, and the 

 only one I saw last summer flew out of a cottager's garden as I passed along 



