THE HAEVEST MOUSE. 419 



in the Chester Museum, and said to have been taken in the 

 neighbourhood (Newstead, Proc. Chester Soc. Nat. Sci. vol. iv. 

 p. 248). There appears to be good authority for locating the 

 species in the following counties: — Lancashire (Byerley), Staf- 

 fordshire (Garner and Masefield), Leicester (Harley and Widdow- 

 son), Norfolk (Lubbock and Gurney), Suffolk (Rope and Moor), 

 Cambridgeshire (Jenyns), Warwickshire (Tomes), Worcestershire 

 (Hastings), Hertfordshire (Bond), Essex (Laver), Kent (Colling- 

 wood), Sussex (Harting), Hampshire (Gilbert White), Isle of 

 Wight, Shanklin (A. G. More),* Wiltshire (Montagu), Gloucester- 

 shire (Knapp, Witchell), Devonshire (Montagu, Rowe, Bellamy, 

 Parfitt), and Cornwall (Couch and Rodd). 



In Scotland, according to Macgillivray (Brit. Quad. 1838, 

 p. 257), it has been met with in Aberdeenshire, Fifeshire, and 

 near Edinburgh. Thomas Edward has added Banffshire. As 

 regards Edinburgh, Mr. William Evans, Secretary to the Royal 

 Physical Society, who has paid close attention to the mammalian 

 fauna of that district, reports that his efforts to obtain specimens 

 have been singularly unsuccessful, and considers that it must be 

 very local and nowhere numerous. Mr. Small, taxidermist, of 

 Edinburgh, many years ago received two from Banffshire, and in 

 August, 1885, Mr. Evans found a nest of this mouse in a tuft of 

 coarse grass growing under a hedge surrounding a cornfield behind 

 Aberlady, in East Lothian. It was about eighteen inches above 

 the ground, and was supported entirely by the stems of the grass 

 and a few twigs of the hedge. In 1870 he was informed by 

 Mr. D. F. Mackenzie, factor, of Mortonhall, near Edinburgh, 

 that he had obtained a number of compact round nests among a 

 heavy crop of oats on the home-farm there. They were placed 

 one or two feet from the ground, and belonged to a small reddish 

 mouse which he saw more than once sitting on the heads of the 

 corn.f 



As regards Ireland, Bell states (p. 291) that "it would seem 

 to be very rare there, but through the kindness of Dr. Kinahan 



* This species is included in Venables' ' Guide to the Isle of Wight,' in a 

 list of the Mammalia by A. G. More ; but in the subsequently published 

 ' Guide ' by Jenkinson (1876) it is stated (p. lxix) that " Mr. Bury was once 

 informed that a few specimens had been obtained near Shanklin, but it is 

 possible that the young of Mus sijlvaticus were mistaken for it." 



f ' Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh District,' 1892, p. 79. 



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