462 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



assure the referrer that "feral" has nothing to do with ferus, as Mr.Ridgway 

 supposes. The adjective derived from forus is ferinus (Virg. ^n. i. 215 ; 

 xi. 571), and the English form, naturally, "ferine." — H. H. Slatkr 

 (Irchester Vicarage, Wellingborough). 



MAMMALIA. 

 The Bank Vole in Sussex. — Observing the scant notice of the occur- 

 rence of the Bank Vole in this county (p. 366), I venture to offer the 

 following observations. I am not sure in what year it was, but shortly 

 after this little animal had been described by Yarrell as a new British species 

 under the name of Arvicola riparia, I obtained several specimens at High- 

 lands, in the parish of Framfield, where, in an orchard, it was rather 

 plentiful. This was in East Sussex. In West Sussex it is by no means 

 uncommon in my own garden, at Cowfold, near Horsham, where I have 

 often watched it playing around me, sometimes two or three being together ; 

 and on one occasion, whilst sitting with a book by the side of a pond near 

 my house, a remarkably red one was for some time sitting on my foot, eating 

 a frond of wood-anemone, part of which it carried into its hole, which I then 

 saw was close at hand. The Bank Vole is very partial to maize, to obtain 

 which from a small trough for feeding wildfowl it does not hesitate to take 

 the water and to dive for the grains ; in fact, it seems as much at home in 

 that element as its congener the Water Vole, or the Brown Rat. I have 

 frequently seen it swimming about near the banks of the pond, without any 

 apparent object beyond its own amusement. — Wm. Boreer (Cowfold, 

 Sussex). 



The Bank Vole in Durham. — I can in some degree supplement the 

 Editor's interesting paper on Arvicola glareolus, so far as one county is 

 concerned. When at school at Durham we used to capture most of the 

 wild beasts and birds of the neighbourhood, subject, to a certain extent, to 

 the prejudices of the local gamekeepers. We used to keep domesticated 

 colonies of the smaller rodents in large wooden boxes, with a four-inch sod 

 on the bottoms, in which they burrowed, bred, and were as happy as 

 circumstances permitted. We caught several Bank Voles at different times 

 ("red mice," as we used to call them till we found out the proper name), 

 but they were decidedly rare as compared with the Short-tailed Vole, and 

 I do not remember that we caught more than half-a-dozen altogether. 

 They were caught witli cheese, our general bait, and always in hedge-banks. 

 In captivity we could always recognise their voices, which were much more 

 deep-toned than those of their relatives. As to food, we used to give them 

 anything in the vegetable way that came handy, besides bread and milk. 

 We noticed that they had a great fondness for acorns and beech-nuts; they 

 would leave anything for the latter ; hazel-nuts they could certainly master 

 without assistance. They were much more amiable than the other species; 



