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THE ZOOLOGIST. 



although trapped in mid-winter. I have also met with it mostly white so 

 late as Easter. Having shot, trapped, and examined a great many, I think 

 the whitest fur will be met with during December and January ; those 

 I have caught later have assumed a portion of brown over the head, neck, 

 and near the tail ; the tip of the tail is black in all seasons. I consider the 

 Stoat to be the boldest and most destructive member of our native Mam- 

 malia—a real little glutton when it enters a well-stocked game-preserve. — 

 J. Sutton (33, Western Hill, Durham). 



Variety of the Mole.— I have just found a newly-killed and rather 

 curious variety of the Mole. A line of reddish brown runs down the 

 under surface of the body ; and the fur below the forelegs, under the chin, 

 and at the root of the nose above is of the same colour. — E. P. Labken 

 (Gatton Tower, Eeigate). 



Bank Vole in Shropshire.— Mr. T. C. Eyton contributed a " Fauna 

 of Shropshire and North Wales " to the ' Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' 

 which afterwards became the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History.' 

 At page 397 of vol. iv. of the latter publication he says that the Bank Vole 

 was several times taken near Eyton. — J. E. Kelsall. 



BIRDS. 



Magpies attacking a weakly Donkey. — Lieut -Col. G. M. Morgan, 

 of Biddlesden Park, Brackley, in a letter dated March 8th, sends me the 

 following story, which I trust you will consider as worthy of insertion in 

 'The Zoologist': — "My son, from whom 1 heard this morning, relates a 

 very curious circumstance ; he lives at a place called Doddershall Park, in 

 Bucks, about three miles and a half in a straight line from Wottou House, 

 the seat of the Duke of Buckingham, where the woods are very extensive 

 and not strictly preserved, so that Magpies are tolerably numerous. Jonah 

 George, alluded to by my son, acts as chief woodman and gamekeeper on 

 the Doddershall property, and is well known to me as a most respectable 

 and reliable mau. I give the occurrence in my son's own words: — 'Jonah 

 George tells me that he had noticed in the snow fourteen or fifteen Magpies 

 hovering about his old Donkey, which was turned out in his field with a 

 sore back. He came to me for some cartridges one morning, and told me 

 that the Magpies had killed the Donkey and eaten a great piece out of his 

 back. There was nothing else the matter with the Donkey, and the 

 wound made by the birds was quite sufficient to kill it. He shot two 

 Magpies in the act of eating the Donkey.' " I received another letter from 

 Colonel Morgan this morning (March 19th), in which he tells me that he 

 is informed by his sou that the sore was on the spine of the Donkey, and 

 there can be no doubt that the Magpies got at the spinal marrow; he adds 

 that the wound on the dead beast's back was seven or eight inches across. 



