20 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



unlikely would it be that the creatures were survivors of the old Norfolk 

 race. The only way of accounting for their presence, therefore, is to regard 

 them as " escapes," and very recent ones, too, I believe. With regard to the 

 late Mr. Gurney's communication printed in vol. ii., pp. 273-4, of the 

 ' Transactions of the Norf. and Nor. Nat. Soc.,' he distinctly says the source 

 of his information was "a cutting from a newspaper of the year 1811," 

 then in his possession ; he therefore quotes from a contemporaneous local 

 record, and if coincidence of date has any weight the preference should be 

 given to this statement rather than to that in Daniel's ' Rural Sports,' pub- 

 lished two years later. I certainly was aware of Daniel's referenoe to the 

 same occurrence, and doubtless Mr. Gurney was also, but he evidently 

 wished to reproduce a local version. This is not the only discrepancy be- 

 tween the two accounts, for the latter gives the number of Stoats killed as 

 416, whereas the former mentions 446. Sir Ralph Gallwey quotes this 

 same list in his book on ' Field and Covert ' shooting (Badminton Library), 

 p. 18, and differs from Daniel's numbers in three instances, and from Mr. 

 Gurney's in two ; but with regard to the number of Marteus no two are 

 alike, Mr. Gurney giving the number as 43, Daniel 3, and Sir Ralph 

 Gallwey 9. They cannot all be right, who shall decide between them ? I 

 would suggest that the smaller the number the more likely it is to be correct. 

 The Kelling Marten is now in the possession of Capt. Bird's son, the Rev. 

 Maurice C. H. Bird, of Brunstead Rectory.— T. Southwell (Norwich). 



Albino Squirrel. — A beautiful albino Squirrel, which had for some weeks 

 past been seen in our garden and the adjoining plantations, was, on the 

 afternoon of Nov. 23rd, caught by a retriever, and brought to my brother, 

 Mr. Bertie Matthews. It was a female, of a pure white, without any mark 

 of the usual colour ; its eyes were entirely of a transparent rosy pink.^- 

 A. Matthews (Gumley, Market Harborough). 



The Polecat in North Wiltshire. — I do not think that the Polecat, 

 Mustela putorius, is by any means extinct in North Wilts. Two instances 

 of its occurrence have come under my observation. About fifteen or twenty 

 years ago a boy killed one in the parish of Hardenhuish, near Chippenham, 

 where the stuffed skin is still preserved in a cottage. During the severe 

 winter of 1890-91 another specimen was secured in the same neighbour- 

 hood. The animal, evidently half starved, had crept into a fowl-house in 

 the outskirts of Chippenham, where it was discovered and killed. — A. G. 

 11 kadi ky i Portchester). 



The Polecat in Northamptonshire.— On September 26th ult. I received 

 a letter from Mr. Percy Mitchell, of C ran ford Hall, Kettering, in which he 

 informed me that a Polecat had been caught in a trap at that place, by his 

 gamekeeper, a few days before the above date. — Lilford (Lilford Hall, 

 Oundle). 



