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NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



The Hedgehog in the Highlands. — Gathering from some recent 

 remarks by Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown and others, in ' The Scottish 

 Naturalist ' and elsewhere, that the Hedgehog is considered to be 

 rare — if not of recent introduction — to some parts of the Scottish 

 Highlands, I have turned up some of my old journals, and the follow- 

 ing results may perhaps be worth putting on record : — In 1877 I saw 

 a Hedgehog on the side of Ben Cruachan, on the slopes facing the 

 Pass of Brander, and allowed it to continue its way unmolested. 

 This is, of course, on the north bank of Loch Awe, in Argyllshire. It 

 is well known to gamekeepers in that county, in several places ; a 

 few, for example, are still killed annually in the neighbourhood of 

 Glendaruel. In Glen Urquhart, Inverness-shire, it used to be trapped 

 in numbers some twenty years ago, and is doubtless still not un- 

 common there. On April 13th, 1887, I had noted having passed " a 

 dead Hedgehog lying at the roadside," in walking from Loch Maree 

 Hotel to Kinlochewe, in Ross- shire. From recollection I think this 

 was near Talladale Bridge, and I believe I have seen others in that 

 county, though up to the present I have not found any notes made of 

 them. No doubt the animal must be known to many of your readers 

 to occur in these and probably many other Highland localities, but 

 records of " common things " are rarely considered to be worth while 

 putting into print, and the often-felt want of them must be my excuse 

 for thus troubling you. — George Bolam (Alston, Cumberland). 



Albinic Example of Mus sylvaticus. — A very beautiful specimen of 

 a perfectly white Long-tailed Field-Mouse has been brought to me. 

 It was one of a litter of six, the rest of the family being of the 

 ordinary colour. The nest was made in a stubble-field near this 

 village, and was turned up by the plough. It can be imagined what 

 the very prominent beady eyes of a Field-Mouse are like when they 

 resemble drops of Stephens's red ink — that is the nearest description 

 of their colour. The little white one has been reared by hand, and 

 has become very tame, though at one time it used its teeth freely on 

 being handled. By diligent search, which, however, may have missed 

 an entry, only one instance of an albino Long-tailed Field-Mouse has 

 been found throughout the whole series of ' The Zoologist ' from 



