128 Animal Life 
There is a well-marked variety of this mouse known as Mus flavicollis, which is larger 
and pure white instead of bluish white underneath. It also has a complete yellow 
band across the throat. I have also caught specimens in which the brown throat spot 
is continued in a distinct line right away down the centre of the belly. 
The common House Mouse is so 
well known—in fact only too well 
known in some places—that there 1s 
little need to say much about it. In 
many places in the country its flesh 
is still believed to be a sovereign cure 
for many ills that flesh is heir to. A 
friend of mine, a doctor in Norfolk, 
had an obstinate case of whooping 
cough in a child which nothing 
seemed to relieve. At last the mother 
asked if she might give it a mouse. 
My friend was considerably aston- 
ished, but said yes, as 1 could not do 
the child any harm, and immediately 
after eating it the curious thing was 
S that the cough began to get better. 
Photograph by 7. A. Metcalfe, Pickering. I was once asked by an old woman 
SECO1OSI| MOUSSE to skin her a mouse so that she 
might roast it for her little granddaughter who was suffering from some childish ailment. 
The common Brown or House Rat, known as Ratton in the country, is also only too 
well known, and I could easily write a small volume upon it—its ways, habits, and 
destructiveness. I had the honour in assisting to kill, together with my friend the 
Rey. C. H. Coates, the biggest rat yet recorded. This was at Claxton Hall, Yorkshire. 
We had just finished a most successful day’s ferretting, and as a last draw put three 
ferrets under the roof of an old pigstye. They all came out badly bitten, and -after 
we had pulled off most of the tiles a huge buck rat, as grey as a badger, jumped 
to the ground and was almost torn in pieces by an Airedale terrier. He measured 
twenty inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, and weighed two pounds 
and three-quarters. This was on 17th November, 1896. I quite believe that there are 
rats as large, if not larger, in some of the big sewers and warehouses, but the 
ratcatchers never trouble to weigh them. Sandy colloamedl specimens and others spotted 
with white, and even pure winte ones, are at times obtained, and there is a well- 
known dark variety, known as the Mus hibernicus, common in certain parts of 
Ireland, and also occasionally taken in England and Scotland. It has before now 
been confused with the real old black rat Mus rattus. 
The Voles differ from the true mice in having short tails and noses and ears, smaller 
eyes, a more corpulent form, proportionately shorter limbs, and in the arrangement of their 
teeth. The Short-tailed Field Vole is a most destructive little rodent, at times devouring 
everything before it, and eating wp all the grass on the sheep runs, and spoiling what 
it could not eat. It seems to have indeed a much more decided preference for grass 
land than for arable. It varies greatly in size. I have taken. one specimen which 
measured nearly six inches from tip of nose to end of tail. As boys we used to have 
great fun putting bumble bees down the burrows of the short-tailed field voles, and 
making them act the part of miniature ferrets and bolt the voles. 
The Red Bank Vole is a very pretty mouse, easily distinguished from its commoner 
cousin, the short-tailed field vole, by its beautiful reddish colour and longer ears and tail. 
