430 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Lesser Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus hipposiderus) in Carnarvon- 

 shire. — As the distribution of the Lesser Horseshoe Bat is still im- 

 perfectly known, it may be of interest to record the occurrence of the 

 species in Carnarvonahire. I have recently seen an example which 

 was taken on Sept. 24th near Tal-y-Bont. The Bat was hanging with 

 about a dozen others of the same species to the roof of a cave on the 

 bank of the Afon Dulyn, a tributary of the Conway. — Chas. Oldham 

 (Knutsford). 



Blind Rats and Mice. — In cutting peas in one of my fields here on 

 August 3rd, five young Bats, estimated at about a month old, were 

 killed, and a short distance off a pregnant doe Rat, which was probably 

 their mother. The doe and one of the young ones were in normal 

 condition, but the other four were blind of both eyes ; in one instance 

 one of the eyes was gone, and the lids had coalesced, requiring con- 

 siderable force to separate them, showing the injury was of some days' 

 standing. The only explanation I can suggest is that this was the 

 work of a pair of Bed-backed Shrikes which were nesting in an 

 adjoining hedge, in the same way that Magpies and Jays treat 

 Rabbits ; but the pea-haulm afforded excellent cover, and it is remark- 

 able that within the few days which can only have elapsed since the 

 young Rats first left the nest the butcher-birds should have succeeded 

 in pecking both eyes of four individuals, which subsequently escaped 

 them. The only other explanation that occurs to me is to ask whether 

 there is any beetle or other invertebrate of any sort known which 

 attacks the eyes of nestling small mammals ? One occasionally meets 

 with an adult Rat blind of one eye, but that I have always attributed 

 to one or other of the many accidents that Rat-flesh is heir to — such 

 as wounded by man, by shot, or stick, or fighting one of its own 

 species. At my old home at Great Marlow I met with hundreds of Mice 

 blind of one or both eyes. Many years ago an Iceland pony which I 

 imported went blind, and it seems just possible that the form of 

 ophthalmia from which he suffered may have been contagious, and 



