832 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Field Vole suckled by a House Mouse, and vice versa. — Among the 

 numerous instances which have been recorded from time to time of young 

 animals having been reared by females of a totally different species, or even 

 order, I do not remember having met with a similar case to the following, 

 the most noteworthy point here being, I think, the fact that a fresh-caught 

 wild animal should not only continue when in confinement to suckle her 

 own young (instead of eating them), but should even take in and give 

 nourishment to a stranger, very much older and quite differeut in colour 

 and general appearance from her own offspring: — On the 23rd of last May 

 I caught in a Mole's run a large female Field Vole, Arvicola agrestis, with 

 five young ones of about three or four days old, as near as I could judge, 

 and placed the whole family, nest and all, in a cage, except one young one, 

 which I put with a tame female of Mm muscuhis, also suckling young, hers 

 being fourteen days old, and just beginning to see — consequently very much 

 older than the young Field Voles. At the same time I put one of the 

 young House Mice (a white one) with the old Field Vole and her family. 

 Both mothers took kindly to their foster-children and suckled them with 

 their own progeny. The young white Mouse placed with the Field Vole 

 throve well, and was soon able to feed on bread, &c, but the four young 

 Field Voles, though they grew fast and in time were able to leave the nest, 

 were suddenly devoured by their mother, — I fancy from my having to 

 remove them all to a larger cage, — yet, strange as it may appear, she never 

 molested the young white Mouse, which continued to live with her after she 

 had devoured her young ones. In the case of the other changeling (the 

 young Field Vole nursed by a House Mouse), though it did not grow nearly 

 so fast as the rest of the litter, which remained with their mother, it con- 

 tinued to suck, and I think might have been reared had it not unfortunately 

 fallen from the nest (placed at the top of the cage) to the floor below, where 

 1 found it on the 29th nearly dead with cold, and beyond recovery. The 

 young Field Voles reared by their mother began to see on the 28th, probably 

 about the ninth day. Apropos of a correspondence which recently appeared 

 in 'The Field' respecting nests found in Moles' runs and elsewhere, partly 

 composed of the fur of Arvicola agrestis, I may mention that I found a nest 

 this spring on the 18th April in a Mole's run, evidently tenanted by Field 

 Voles, which was constructed of grass combined with the fur of those animals, 

 among which I found three of their incisor teeth. A few dajs afterwards 

 I came upon a similar nest in the side of a ditch, the materials of which 

 were grass and rabbits' fur; the skeleton of the rabbit from which the fur 



