THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 903.^Scptemher 15th, 1916. 



THE MAMMALIAN FAUNA OF NORTH CARDIGANSHIEE, 

 WITH NOTES ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES AND 

 RARE SPECIES. 



By Frank S. Wright, 



University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. 



It is perhaps not altogether a raatter for surprise that, in 

 North Cardiganshire, which possesses an attractive and varied 

 avian fauna, the local mammals should have been somewhat 

 neglected. In fact no very serious attempt has been made to 

 study them, and the only list* seems to be that of Dr. J. H. 

 Salter, in the N.U.T. Souvenir (Aberystwyth, 1911). The present 

 paper cannot claim to be exhaustive, owing to pressure of work 

 and the difficulties of travel in this mountainous and sparsely- 

 peopled area. These factors have caused my visits to the hills 

 to be usually of short duration. It is very difficult to elicit any 

 information from the rural population, and many of the promises 

 of help made by friends have remained unfulfilled owing to the 

 abnormal conditions of the past twenty months. Ornithologists 

 of no mean order are met with in many parts of North Cardigan- 

 shire, but, apart from that of the gamekeepers, to whom they are 

 mainly " vermin," the mammals, less obtrusive than the birds, 

 attract very little attention — luckily, one is tempted to add. 



Despite the drawbacks just mentioned, in view of several 



=^= In his book ' The Vertebrate Fauna of North Wales,' Mr. H. E. Forrest 

 gives a number of North Cardiganshire records. 



Zool, Mil ser., vol. XX., September, 1916. cc 



