362 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Vole, or Water Rat, as it is commonly termed, Arvicola amph'ibius ; 

 the Shoit-tailed Field Vole, A. agrestis ; and the Bank Vole, 

 A. glareolus. The characters which distinguish all these from 

 the true mice and rats belonging to the genus Mus are to be 

 found in the form of the skull, and especiall}^ the teeth, the 

 molars, for example, having no roots. Their external appearance 

 also is different. Instead of a long narrow head, large prominent 

 ears, and long tail, either naked or sparsely clothed with hairs, 

 they have a large rounded head, ears so short that they are 

 almost hidden in the fur of the head, and a comparatively short 

 tail well covered with hair. 



It is remarkable that neither the so-called Water Eat nor 

 either of the two smaller Voles are found in Ireland, in which 

 country, in fact, there is no representative of the genus Arvicola. 



In Scotland all three species occur, and are widely distributed. 

 A. amphibius is common throughout the mainland and in Orkney, 

 but the late Edward Alston could obtain no satisfactory evidence 

 of its existence in the Inner Islands, though said to be found in 

 Islay and Mull ; and it is certainly absent from the Outer 

 Hebrides. A. agrestis, though common on the mainland, in the 

 Inner Islands, and in Orkney (according to Messrs. Baikie and 

 Heddle, Hist. Nat. Orcadensis, p. 16), has not been found in 

 Shetland. In the Outer Hebrides it has been reported from 

 Eodil and Loch Boisdale, and in 1879 Mr. Harvie Brown 

 captured a specimen, now in the British Museum, at Newton, 

 North Uist. A. glareolus, the least well-known of all, was first 

 noticed in Scotland by Macgillivray, who examined specimens 

 procured at Kelso and Bathgate, in Linlithgowshire (Naturalists' 

 Library, Brit. Quad. vol. vii. p. 272), and is locally distributed. 

 It has not been recorded, however, from any of the Islands, nor 

 from further north than Morayshire, where, according to the 

 Rev. G. Gordon, it is extremely common, and particularly 

 destructive to young larch trees, climbing the branches to feed 

 on the young buds, and barking the stems in winter. 



In ' The Zoologist' for 1866 (pp. 9, 10) Mr. Alston noticed 

 the occurrence of the Bank Vole in Lanarkshire, under the 

 impression, at that date, that it was a new addition to the fauna 

 of Scotland; but he had overlooked the previous notice of it by 

 Macgillivray above referred to, an inadvertence subsequently 

 admitted (Zool. 1866, p. 240). 



