148 TiiE ZOOLOGlst* 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Supposed Occurrence of Vespertilio murinus in England: Cor- 

 rection of an Error.— In reply to enquiries as to the evidence for including 

 the Mouse-coloured Bat (V. murinus) in my List of the Vespertilionida 

 found in the Isle of Wight (see Veuables' ' Guide,' 1860), I may explain 

 that it was the late Mr. F. Bond who wrote me that he had obtained this 

 species at Freshwater, and I relied altogether upon his identification, 

 knowing how very accurate and careful he was ; but, some years afterwards, 

 he wrote that the large Bat which he had found at Freshwater was the 

 Noctule, V. noctula, and not V. murinus. I remember, also, that the same 

 mistake was communicated to the Linnean Society by the late Prof. Tnomas 

 Bell, to whom I had meutioned it. Another Bat, given as Daubenton's Bat 

 in Venables' ■ Guide,' Mr. Bond told me proved to be V. mystacinus. Both 

 errors were set right by myself in a list of Isle of Wight Quadrupeds 

 given in Jenkinson's ■ Practical Guide to the Isle of Wight ' (1876), and 

 I am only sorry that I did not make the correction more generally known, 

 since it concerns such a very dubiously British species. — A. G. More 

 (Dublin). 



Stoats in Ermine Dress. — A nearly white Stoat was caught in a 

 mole-trap, near here, on March 5th. The only parts retaiuing the brown 

 colour are narrow rings round the eyes. A precisely similar example was 

 killed at the end of February or beginning of March, 1891. I have 

 examined several other Oxfordshire examples of these " spectacled " 

 Stoats, and it appears that a ring of fur round each eye are the parts which 

 least often become white. In a previous note (' Zoologist,' 1884, p. 112) 

 I have remarked upon the assumption of the ermine dress by English 

 Stoats in mild winters. — 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Squirrels destructive in Plantations. — A short time ago we remarked 

 the ground beneath a spruce fir strewn with young shoots, cut off at the 

 terminal joint of each sprig ; the cluster of buds at the severed joint and 

 most of the single buds at the extreme point were empty. Another spruce 

 has since been attacked, and we are much afraid of the havoc extending to 

 a very handsome American pine close by. As during the past winter some 

 cattle belonging to a neighbour were killed by browsing upon a yew, my 

 husband cut off the lower branches of a fine old tree on our lawn, and, on 

 passing by it a few days ago, he was much surprised to find the ground 

 strewn with terminal shoots nipped off, as if with a pair of clipping shears* 





