788 Quadrupeds. 



naturalist, and the consequence was, I lost the opportunity of more 

 closely examining a curious variety of the brown rat, having a white 

 spot immediately over each eye, and a band of like colour, about a 

 line in breadth, extending from the eyes to the ears. 



The Water Vole is common enough in places adapted to its 

 habits. 



The Field Vole is equally abundant : I once flattered myself I had 

 obtained, by the aid of my good cat, the Bank Vole (Arvicola riparia) 

 of Yarrell. 1 showed my specimen to Mr. J. E. Gray ; he shook his head : 

 I pointed to the elongated hairs at the extremity of the tail ; another 

 shake : I directed his attention to the length of the tail itself ; shake 

 the third : there is no satisfying some persons, thought I. " Send me 

 up a good many specimens, a bottle full," said Mr. Gray. 1 sent him 

 eight or nine, and in due time he writes me word, " The voles are all 

 one species," meaning thereby that they were all the common field 

 vole ; and I had to console myself, under my disappointment, with a 

 polite letter of thanks from the authorities at the British Museum, 

 for my " valuable addition to the collection of British Mammalia." 

 Still I have no real quarrel with the incredulity of Mr. Gray, for those 

 same incredulous men, who will believe nothing that is not more than 

 demonstrated, are the very men for naturalists. It is a common say- 

 ing of mine, that no man with a grain of poetry in his composition 

 can be trusted as an authority in natural history. Imagination works 

 too freely to allow a poet to observe w T ith sufficient accuracy. Others, 

 however, and myself among the number, are liable to make mistakes ; 

 and if I might do so without seeming presumptuous, I would suggest 

 whether Mr. Jenyns, in his most excellent ' Manual,' has not fallen 

 into error in giving as a specific distinction of Arvicola riparia, " the 

 hairs at the tip of the tail a little elongated." For some examples of 

 both our other species of vole most certainly have the hairs at the 

 extremity of the tail so elongated. Professor Bell has figured A. am- 

 phibia with the point of the tail pencilled ; and in the only specimen 

 in my possession the hairs extend beyond the skin just one quarter of 

 an inch. But A. agrestis, in the ' British Quadrupeds,' has its tail as 

 bald as bald can be ; and yet I have seen many examples this summer, 

 as Mr. Gray can testify, with the hairs as much elongated as they are 

 represented in the figure of A. riparia in the same valuable work. I 

 think, then, this elongation cannot constitute a specific distinction. 

 I hardly know whether it is admissible to distinguish the genus, since 

 some individuals of A. agrestis have tails as bald as those figured in 

 the ' British Quadrupeds.' 1 cannot say whether it is the same with 



