NOTES AND QUERIES. 271 



MAMMALIA. 



Badger and Polecat in Leicestershire. — A few days ago (June 14th), 

 as a farm servant was going to liis work early in the morning, he saw a 

 Badger lying asleep in the bottom of a dry ditch, and having cleverly placed 

 the prongs of a pitchfork, which he was carrying in his hand, across tlio 

 Badger's neck, he pinned him to tlie ground ; he then tied his legs together 

 with a piece of cord, and carried him home in triumph. The mere capture 

 of a Badger in Leicestershire is by no means an unusual occurrence, for 

 they are very abundant in this neighbourhood. The present case is only 

 worth recording from the peculiar manner in which it was effected. I have 

 seen many which have either been shot or taken alive, some of them very 

 large specimens ; one which was shot a few years ago by a person in this 

 village weighed 24 lbs. With reference to the distribution of the Mammalia 

 in England this note may be of some use ; and, for the same reason, I may 

 also mention that the Polecat is far from uncommon, though perhaps not so 

 plentiful as the Badger. — A. Matthews (Gumley, Market Harborough). 



An amber-coloured Mole. — During the first week of June I received 

 from a mole-catcher in an adjoining parish an amber-coloured variety of the 

 Common Mole. He has met with several of this variety in the course of 

 his trapping.— A. Matthews (Gumley, Market Harborough). 



BIRDS. 



Note on a Gyr Falcon obtained in Sussex in 1851. — In 'The 

 Zoologist' for 1851 (p. S-i'6S) Mr. Ellman recorded the occurrence, 

 in January of that year, of a Gyr Falcon at Mayfield, in Sussex. This 

 specimen subsequently passed into the fine collection of Mr. Boirer, of 

 Cowfold, where I had recently the pleasure of examining it, and of identi- 

 fying it as a genuine example of Hierofalco gyrfalco, not "immature," as 

 stated by Mr. Ellman, but in fully adult plumage, and in excellent 

 preservation. The very great rarity of British specimens of this falcon 

 induces me to record my opinion tliat this example is referable to H. gyr- 

 falco, and not, as catalogued in Mr. Harting's ' Handbook of British Birds,' 

 to H. islandicus. Mr. Borrer informs me that this falcon was shot in the 

 act of devouring a Pigeon on the top of a wheat-stack.— J. H. Gurnky 

 (Northrepps, Norwich). 



[This same specimen is noticed in Yarrell's 'British Birds' (4th ed., 

 vol i., p. 49) as an Iceland Falcon, doubtless on the authority of Mr. Borrer 

 himself, who furnished the information to the other work quoted. — Ed.] 



Falco or Hierofalco.— The Committee of the B. 0. U., appointed to 

 draw up the 'Ibis List of British Birds' separate the great northern 

 Falcons from the true Falcons, considering them geuerically distinct. 

 X have been somewhat puzzled to distinguish characters sufficiently well 



