Quadrupeds. 2283 



number, shaggy and rough in appearance, and four of them had the ends of their 

 brushes ornamented with tufts of white fur. When a bitch has cubs, and becomes 

 aware that her nest is discovered, she takes them up one by one in her mouth, as a 

 cat does her kittens, and removes them to a more secure place. Foxes bark here about 

 February ; the bitch I think first, and is answered by the dog. Some bark so precisely 

 like a dog, that an ordinary person would suppose it was a terrier giving mouth at 

 game. A person who has been much about woods, tells me, that once perceiving a 

 fox in a field, he stole very cautiously up to him, and found that the animal was 

 playing with a live field-mouse, just as a kitten does, and was almost as playful and 

 nimble in his movements. One of the keepers at Donnington Park, hearing a very 

 unusual noise in the woods, went to ascertain the cause, when, to his astonishment, he 

 found it proceeding from two foxes, which were quarrelling over a pheasant. One of 

 the animals had evidently captured the prize, and his gluttonous rival was endeavour- 

 ing to rob him of it. 



Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris). The squirrel is one of our hardiest animals ; for not 

 only is he abroad on the sunny days of spring and summer, but also during the chilly 

 ones of autumn and the rigorous ones of winter. I have seen him on bushes and 

 trees even when their branches have been loaded with snow, and when at every foot- 

 step he has shaken a shower of snow under his feet. How come some naturalists to 

 state that this animal is dormant in winter ? I do not find him so here, for I observe 

 him occasionally during every season. In 1835 I recorded his appearance particu- 

 larly, and find that he was abroad in the plantations of Calke and Donnington on 

 November 12th, December 9th and February 18th. It is truly delightful to see what 

 cleverness this animal displays in every movement. At one time he glides with a 

 gentle, easy motion, amongst the most delicate twigs ; at another he throws himself 

 from the extreme end of a bough, and alights on a tree perhaps a yard distant; and 

 although at every leap he might be supposed to miss his object, he invariably alights 

 in safety. He can run with the same ease in an horizontal, lateral or perpendicular 

 direction, up or down a tree, amongst its foliage or along its bark, and with consider- 

 able speed along the ground. In the autumn he is frequently seen on the ground, 

 busily banqueting upon the fallen fruits, such as acorns and beech mast ; but if during 

 his feast he hears the slightest noise, — a human footstep, or even a rustling leaf, — he 

 darts off instantly, in a series of jumps and jerks, to the nearest tree, and, running 

 cleverly up the bole, is speedily hid among its branches. The squirrel is plentiful in 

 our woods, but rarely seen in the open country, except during autumn, when he ven- 

 tures to our gardens to feed upon the ripe nuts. 



Dormouse {Myoxus avellanarius). Inhabits our larger woods. 



Harvest Mouse (Mus messorius). I have never seen this animal here myself; but 

 the descriptions given of it by reapers and harvest people are so precisely correct, that 

 I cannot doubt its existence in this neighbourhood. An individual which I once saw 

 was so small that two of them would not have been so long as a moderately-sized ear 

 of wheat. 



Long-tailed Field Mouse (Mus sylvaticus). This animal is so very shy in his 

 habits that during the winter months he is hardly ever seen abroad, and yet I imagine 

 that our fields are pretty well peopled with them. When breaking up clover roots, in 

 the autumn, many of these pretty animals are ploughed out of the ground ; and I 

 have seen the ploughboy returning home on an afternoon with his hat stuck all round 

 with mice, which he had killed with his whip when driving the team, and inserted 



