76 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Long- tailed Field Mouse of the Outer Hebrides.— Referring to 

 Mr. W. E. de Wiiiton's remarks respecting this mouse (Zool. 1895, 

 pp. 446, 447), and his neglect to compare his specimeus with the one 

 already recorded and at the British Museum, it would be of interest if he, 

 or Mr. Oldfield Thomas, would kindly do so, and forward the particulars 

 for publication in ' The Zoologist.' Should my description be somewhat 

 inaccurate, it is excusable, for the specimen was sent to the Editor upon my 

 return to St. Kilda, with a request to have its description brought before 

 the readers of this Journal, and was afterwards described by me from 

 memory only, and without any comparison ever having been made with the 

 ordinary type. It is hardly worth while to mention the difficulty of 

 obtaining further specimens from St. Kilda, having sent out spirits for 

 preservation of specimens, a supply of arsenical soap having been left on 

 the island, but all to no purpose ; and until I am able to pay another visit, or 

 others interested in the subject can spend a few days at least on those lonely 

 rocks, little more than we know at present is likely to be published. This 

 Mouse, I think, is by no means numerous there. — J. Steele Elliott 

 (Dixon's Green, Dudley). 



Hedgehogs in Winter.— Bell, in the second edition of his 'British 

 Quadrupeds ' (p. 109), remarks that the " hybernation of the Hedgehog is, 

 perhaps, as complete as that of any animal inhabiting this country. . . . 

 It lays up no store for the winter, but retires to its warm soft nest of most 

 and leaves, and, rolling itself up into a compact ball, passes the dreary 

 season in a state of dreamless slumber, undisturbed by the violence of the 

 tempest, and only rendered still more profoundly torpid by the bitterest 

 frost," and, as a rule, in my experience this is quite true, for I once had, for 

 three or four years, a score of Hedgehogs in a large walled-in garden ; and, 

 whether the winter was mild or^ severe, they never moved when once they 

 had taken up their winter quarters, which were always in the manure 

 covering a strawberry-bed, and in that laid at the roots of a large patch of 

 lavender ; but, audi alteram partem, a year or two ago, some unfamiliar 

 footprints being seen in the snow, they were tracked to a thick hedgerow, 

 and from a mass of dead leaves Er'maceus europceus was unearthed in quite 

 a lively condition ; and in January I knew of a fine old Hedgehog which 

 periodically issued forth from its lair in the bottom of a thick fence, the 

 grass leading to the same being all trodden down, and a regular track made, 

 Sometimes from home, and at others cosily rolled up in the middle of its 

 domicile; but I am afraid it must have resented my visits and taken up 

 other quarters, for it is now missing. — Oxley Gkabham (Flaxtou, Yorkj. 



BIRDS. 



The Dispersal of Acorns by Rooks.— In an extract from the Report 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, given under the above heading 



