172 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Hall, on May 26th, 1890 : — " The nest was suspended from the 

 bough of a fallen tree, and was perhaps eighteen inches or two 

 feet from the ground" (N. Neave, in lit.). 



Family Muridje 



Microtus amphibius (L.) ; Water Vole; Water Rat. — This 

 species is common and generally distributed. In the winter of 

 1881-1882 Mr. E. Comber shot an example of the black variety 

 at Parkgate, in Wirral (Zool. 1890, p. 384). Another was 

 observed in the same neighbourhood in May, 1890, and Mr. 

 King, of Carlisle, has met with this form on the banks of the 



Fig. 1. — Eight upper molars of (a) agrestis, (b) glareolus, x 10|. 



Dee (Macpherson and Aplin, Zool. 1892, p. 287). The Water 

 Vole does not invariably bring forth its young in a burrow in the 

 bank of some stream or pond. On June 25th, 1887, we found 

 three spherical nests made of gnawed reeds and flags, placed on 

 platforms of the same materials, which raised them above the 

 water, in a reed-bed at Pickmere Mere. One of the nests con- 

 tained four blind young ones, one of which was much darker 

 in colour than the other three (C. Oldham, « Naturalist,' 

 1892, p. 4). 



M. agrestis (De Selys) ; Field Vole ; Field Mouse.— Abun- 

 dant and generally distributed. In the Grosvenor Museum, 

 Chester, there are two pied examples from Cotton Edmunds, and 

 an albino fro.n Nantwich (Newstead). We have trapped this 

 species in plantations, gardens, and hedgerows, but its usual 

 habitat is the open fields, where, in some places, the turf is so 

 honeycombed by its burrows as to resemble a miniature rabbit* 

 warren. In Dunham Park, Field Voles form the staple food of 



