1909.] SICISTA SUBT1LIS IN NORWAY. 9 



labourer, whilst cutting the corn, killed three in holes in the 

 ground where they attempted to hide. 



The specimens were as a ru le found singly, and their 

 number was not known to be considerable in any place. In 

 Storlidalen in Opdal several, however, were caught on the same 

 mountain farm some hundred meters or so from each other. 



Their speed through the grass was not so great but that 

 they could be caught with ease. The dorsal stripe appeared to 

 be rather conspicuous; some observers say, that they saw „some- 

 thing like a black worm gliding through the grass". One 

 specimen, when caught alive, bit its captor in the finger, and 

 was thrown to the ground; when again caught it squealed very 

 much as a mouse does. 



The earliest in the season was one caught in Grindalen, 

 Rennebo, the 25 th of June (1909), the last in Valders Sep. 30 st , 

 (in the same year). 



Of their life during winter in our country we have as yet 

 no observations. 



Several of the specimens (caught in August to September) 

 were extremely fat. One of them, obtained in Aug. 27 th 1909, 

 bad a thick layer of fat all over the body, and a hood of fat 

 around the back part of the skull. Others, captured about 

 the same time, exhibited no such accumulation of fat. 



Food. The contents of the stomach showed the soft parts 

 and seeds of higher plants, and also small insects; nearly all 

 specimens showed traces of the latter. The microscopic examina- 

 tion ! ) proved the vegetable portion to belong to the phanerogamic 

 plants (not mosses). The specimen, caught in a barley field in 

 Valders, had eaten corn. 



Breeding. As to the conditions of propagation in our 

 country, scarcely anything can be said as yet. No certain 

 observation of a nest has come to hand. Of the 20 specimens 



J ) By Prof. H. Gran. 



