( 69 ) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Albinic Mus rattus. — On January 28th a Yarmouth fish-hawker, 

 who is always on the alert to hunt up queer fish and other curious 

 creatures, brought rne a most interesting specimen of a freshly-killed 

 albinic Mus rattus, the first of the sort I have yet met with. He assured 

 me that he had just taken it from his cat, a procedure she did not much 

 resent, for she had already, that evening, captured two normal-coloured 

 examples of the same species, and had had her fill of them. The Rat 

 was quite uninjured, and by lamplight the coat exhibited the palest 

 bluish-white hue imaginable ; with eyes, hardly yet dimmed, of the 

 most fiery red. The tail was a creamy white, and slightly less elon- 

 gated than in M. rattus generally, the ears being greyish. The same 

 night I forwarded the Rat to Dr. S. H. Long, of Norwich, who has a 

 fairly good representative series of M. rattus and its cousins, including 

 one lately sent him with a patch of white on the breast. The albino 

 (a male) measured as follows : Head, If in. ; head and body, 6 in. ; 

 tail, 5% in. — Arthur H. Patterson (Ibis House, Great Yarmouth). 



AVES. 



Peculiar Nesting-site for the Wheatear on the Sussex Coast. — In 

 June, 1906, whilst visiting the neighbourhood of Pevensey Bay, I 

 observed several pairs of Wheatears (Saxicola cenanthe), which from 

 their behaviour had nests in the vicinity. As there is nothing but 

 long stretches of shingle beach, I could not locate the nesting situation, 

 although I watched the birds disappear and then reappear as if from 

 nowhere. I casually remarked on this fact to a lad who resided in the 

 neighbourhood, and, greatly to my surprise, he informed me that he 

 had " built the nesting-places himself, and would show me a nest then 

 and there.' 1 I accepted his offer with, I must admit, some doubt as to 

 his veracity. However, after about a mile's walk over nothing but 

 bare shingle, he suddenly stopped, and, pointing to a small hole at our 

 feet, not more than l^in. square, said, "there's the nest." After 

 carefully clearing away the shingle he disclosed three bricks — two laid 



