296 Birds. 



of which I felt convinced no Jish had anything to do : and as nothing 

 but either a rat or a fish could have been the guilty party, I fear the 

 former w^ill not go out of court with his character uninjured. It is 

 true, a Hanover rat may sometimes be found on the river-bank, and a 

 late article in * The Zoologist' (Zool. 212) shows that he has a parti- 

 ality (and gratifies it too) for lampems. Now if he can capture a living 

 lampern, he can surely carry off a dead bait, which, though thrown 

 far into the water, is not unfrequently brought by circumstances near 

 to the side. Still, the Hanover rat, although equally willing to sup on 

 fish, has not the same capabilities as his congener for catching them, 

 and besides, is (comparatively) very rarely, and but at one season of 

 the year, found near the water. J. C. Atkinson. 



Hulton, Berwick-on-Tweed, 

 July, 1843. 



'Note on the Watei'-rat. "A large stagnant piece of water in an inland county, with 

 which I was intimately acquainted, and which I very frequently visited for many years 

 of my life, was one summer suddenly infested with an astonishing number of the short- 

 tailed water-rat, none of which had previously existed there. Its vegetation was the 

 common products of such places, excepting that the larger portion of it was densely 

 covered with its usual crop, the smooth horsetail (Equiselum limosum). This consti- 

 tuted the food of the creatures, and the noise made by their champing it we could dis- 

 tinctly hear in the evening at many yards' distance. They were shot by dozens daily; 

 yet the survivors seemed quite regardless of the noise, the smoke, the deaths, around 

 them. Before the winter, this great herd disappeared, and so entirely evacuated the 

 place, that a few years after I could not obtain a single specimen. They did not dis- 

 perse, for the animal is seldom found in the neighbourhood, and no dead bodies were 

 observed. They had certainly made this place a temporary station in their progress 

 from some other ; but how such large companies can change their situations unob- 

 served in their transits is astonishing. Birds can move in high regions and in obscu- 

 rity, and are not commonly objects of notice ; but quadrupeds can travel only on the 

 ground, and would be regarded with wonder, when in great numbers, by the rudest 

 peasant." — ' Journal of a Naturalist j* p. 142. 



Notes on Birds ittjurioiis to Agriculture, and on the Benefits also 

 derived from them. By Archibald Hepburn, Esq. 



The district to which the following observations apply, presents 

 features different from those exhibited by some parts of England, and 

 these it may be useful to note. Our fields are generally of a mode- 

 rate or large size, well fenced with hawthorn hedges, and sometimes, 

 though rarely, with stone walls : approved modern practice reduces 

 the former to the smallest possible dimensions compatible with utility. 



