98 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



" The poison intended for us is now on the ocean, and scarcely 

 a fortnight's sail from our shores. Two of M. Pasteur's assistants 

 are on board the ' Cuzco ' with large supplies of the choleraic 

 microbe, and perhaps even the germs of other diseases as well. 

 Tne opinion I offer to you, and which I hope that you as the 

 leading scientific body in Victoria will confirm, is that our Govern- 

 ment should immediately take steps to make not only the intro- 

 duction but the use of these things highly penal. It seems to me 

 that in trifling with such diseases we should be rushing blindly 

 towards a precipice, and what lies in the darkness beyond it no 

 man living can say." 



Whether it was this report which decided the Government 

 of New South Wales to prohibit the proposed experiment by 

 M. Pasteur's representatives in the colony we are not informed ; 

 but there can be little doubt that it threw considerable weight 

 into the scale of the oppositionists. At any rate the experi- 

 ment was not made, and the principal sufferers by the depreda- 

 tions of Eabbits in Australia were left to seek some other and (as 

 the oppositionists would say) less risky remedy than that of 

 M. Pasteur. 



What we should now like to know is, What is the present 

 status of the Eabbit at the Antipodes after all these vicissitudes 

 of fortune ? 



NOTES AND QUERIES 



MAMMALIA. 



Hedgehogs in Winter. — With reference to Mr. Grabham's note 

 (p. 76), I may state that I once in winter observed for some minutes an old 

 Hedgehog searching about among some dead leaves, which were partly 

 covered with snow some days old, and this during a prolonged spell of frost. 

 The leaves were in a slight hollow ten yards from a hedge. From this 

 I infer that the Hedgehog does not hibernate. — Charles A. Witchell 

 (Eltham, Kent). 



Bank Vole in Jersey.— During a brief stay at St. Helier, Jersey, on 

 January 2nd, I caught a couple of what appear to be perfectly typical 

 examples of the Bank Vole, Evotomys glareolus. I do not know if this 

 species has been previously recorded from Jersey or the Channel Islands. — 

 G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton (Savoy Mausions, W.C.). 



