390 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



MAMMALIA. 

 Rats and their Parasites. — I am trying to make a list of the para- 

 sitic Acari found on Eats (Epimys norvegicus, E. rattus, and E. 

 alexanclrinus) in this country, and would be very grateful for any 

 specimens of these rodents for examination. If the bodies of Eats 

 are placed in a tin with a closely fitting lid as soon as possible after 

 death and sent at once by post their parasites will survive the journey. 

 Even one or two specimens from a single locality are useful. — Stanley 

 Hirst (British Museum (Nat. Hist.), Cromwell Eoad, London, S.W.). 



A VE S. 

 Status of the Starling. — This year we have not had such vast 

 flocks of young Starlings in June as compared with recent years, 

 which is somewhat strange, as this species has multiplied enormously 

 of late years. I had an old friend, who died recently, who used 

 to tell me he remembered quite well the first pair of Starlings 

 breeding in Wilsden ; and, writing to Mr. Harvie Brown in 1894, 

 the late Duke of x\rgyll said : "I never saw a Starling till I went to 

 England in 1836. I still recollect the great interest with which I 

 saw the bird for the first time at the posting inn at Northallerton, in 

 Yorkshire." Yet Jenyns's ' Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, 

 which was published in 1835, states that this species was plentiful 

 and widely dispersed. Since the sixties there is no doubt but that it 

 has been steadily increasing in numbers. It would be interesting to 

 have it established on incontestable evidence that the Starling was 

 unknown in many parts of Yorkshire previous to 1830. — E. P. 

 Butterfield (Wilsden). 



The Grey Lag Goose in Cumberland.— In 'The Zoologist' {ante, 

 p. 346) I was surprised to see Mr. Bolam's statement that " the 

 occurrence of Anser cincreus in any of the northern counties of 

 England is always sufficiently rare at any season to make it worth 

 putting on record." On the Cumberland Solway Marshes this species 

 is now plentiful throughout the winter months. — Eric B. Dunlop 

 (The Howe, Troutbeck, Windermere). 



