( 71 ) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



"Black Rats." — In the last month's ' Zoologist' (p. 20), Mr. Charles 

 Garnett, of Clifton, states that eleven years ago he saw " a colony " of Black 

 Rats, Mus rattus, " in a ditch on Donside, in Aberdeenshire." Might I ask 

 your correspondent if he procured a specimen by which he can prove the 

 correctness of his identification? If he did not, I fear we must conclude 

 that the animals he saw were a colony of the black variety of the common 

 Water- Vole — the Arvicola ater of Macgillivray — which, as is well known, 

 is particularly abundant in the ditches and streams of Aberdeenshire and 

 Banffshire. I can call to mind, too, many instances in recent years where 

 this creature has been recorded as the Old English Black Rat, Mus rattus — 

 a mistake which one would fain hope will soon become as great a rarity as 

 Rattus itself. — William Evans (Edinburgh). 



As there is in 'The Zoologist' for last month (p. 19) the record of a 

 Black Rat, Mus rattus, I may say that on the s. s. ' Wordsworth,' late of 

 Messrs. Lamport and Holt's line, we killed several of this species. Some 

 were caught in traps and let out for the fox-terrier to kill, one of whom, 

 preferring a watery grave, leapt overboard and was drowned ; another climbed 

 down a rope into a boat that was going ashore, but was knocked into the 

 sea by one of the sailors. — M. Burr (Bellagio, East Grinstead). 



BIRDS. 



The proportion of Adult and Immature Birds amongst Accidental 

 Visitors to the British Islands. —In reference to this question, may I be 

 allowed to quote from a work on the Geographical Distribution of British 

 Birds (p. 15), which is now in the binder's hands : — " The fifth group is a 

 very large one and contains all those waifs and strays which are supposed 

 to have wandered out of their usual track to our shores, some of them being 

 adult birds which have been driven involuntarily out of their ordinary course 

 by storms and contrary winds, but most of them being very young birds 

 who have accidentally joined the wrong batch of migrants, and have thus 

 been led astray on their first trip, or have lost their way in attempting to 

 find it alone on their second trip. These are called ' Accidental Visitors.' " 

 I venture to think that Mr. Cordeaux, in his communication on this 

 subject in the last number of ' The Zoologist ' (p. J26), has arrived at a 

 different conclusion simply because the statistics which he quotes are 

 inaccurate. In the first place, very many of the species which he names are 

 regular autumn visitors on migration to Heligoland, and as they do not 

 really come under the category of " Accidental Visitors," the proportion of 



