NOTES AND QUERIES. 75 



keeper in my own immediate neighbourhood trapped three of these animals, 

 one of which I saw. A park keeper on the same beat told me the other 

 day that since his arrival (in the spring of 1891) he had killed five or six 

 Polecats. All three were caught within a radius of about a mile, and some 

 still remain on the same ground. I saw their tracks during the late snow- 

 storm (Jan. 8th). In July, 1889, 1 saw in a fishmonger's shop at Dolgelly 

 a large bundle of Polecats' skins said to have been procured in that neigh- 

 bourhood, where, however, I was told that they were much less common 

 than formerly. — G. H. Caton Haigh (Grainsby Hall, Great Grimsby). 



Mus alexandrinus in Ireland. — As this rat, which is now regarded, 

 I believe, as a tropical or subtropical form of the Black Rat, Mus rattus, 

 appears not to have been recorded as occurring in Ireland, it may be well 

 to note that there are in the Belfast Museum two rats, labelled Mus 

 alexandrinus, and described as having been caught in 1856 at Belfast, in a 

 corn ship from Alexandria. They were presented by Lord Carlingford in 

 1887. One of these specimens is so dark that it is probably only a faded 

 example of M. rattus. The other is undoubtedly a true specimen of 

 M. alexandrinus, and is accordingly of some interest, as it appears to be 

 the only Irish specimen in existence. — G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton. 



cetacea. 

 Lesser Rorqual in Kerry. — A specimen of the Lesser Rorqual, 

 Balanoptera rostrata (Fabr.), was stranded near Waterville, Co. Kerry, in 

 October last. Although reported, in 'Land and Water,' as a Greenland 

 Right Whale, there is no doubt that it was a Lesser Rorqual — a species 

 said to be of not unfrequent occurrence on the Irish coast. According to 

 Mr. H. C. Simpson, at the Waterville Coastguard Station, who has kindly 

 sent me a piece of the baleen, its total length was 28 ft. 3 in. ; girth, 

 18 ft. 9 in. ; width of tail from tip to tip of each fluke, about 3 ft. 6 in.; 

 length of fin on back, 10 in.; length of flippers, about 2 ft. It was of a 

 very dark dirty brown colour above and dirty white below. The baleen 

 forwarded is yellowish white. Mr. Simpson writes that two other Whales 

 were stranded within a quarter of a mile of the place where the Lesser 

 Rorqual came ashore, but no authentic records of them have been obtained. 

 — G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton. 



birds. 

 The Osprey in Lakeland. — I have been much entertained by the 

 naiveness with which my friend Mr. A. G. More has laid down the law as 

 to the large raptorial birds which once bred in Lakeland. He had previously 

 acquainted me with his intention of writing on the subject; but he really 

 must not expect us to accept as tenable the solution of the problems at 

 issue, which he propounds with the happiest indifference to all local condi- 

 tions of life. If Dr. Heysham possessed an Eagle taken in Ulleswater, be 



