NOTES AND QUERIES. 393 



The Grey Squirrel in Bucks and elsewhere. — The note by Mr. 

 Aplin in your current issue (p. 354) adds another English locality 

 to the records of this species. The occurrence of a single indivi- 

 dual is not of much consequence, but Whaddon Chase, the locality 

 named, is likely to share in any spread of the species, as Bucks 

 and Beds are two of the counties in which the Grey Squirrel 

 has run wild for some years. See some particulars in the accom- 

 panying reprint.* To the localities named therein I am now able to 

 add Norfolk and also near Manchester, but cannot say what success 

 has followed the introductions there. — Hugh Boyd Watt. 



Cats with Abnormal Tastes. — From time to time one meets with 

 or hears of Cats with strange and abnormal tastes in the matter of 

 diet. Many instances of vegetarian Cats, like the Persian mentioned 

 by Miss Holloway ('Zoologist,' August, 1915, p. 316) have found 

 their way into natural history journals and magazines, while other 

 equally remarkable cases of this, and other vagaries of feline appetite, 

 have probably never been recorded. Some Cats have a distaste for 

 milk, and others care but little for meat or even refuse it altogether. 

 A writer in the ' Meld ' of October 25th, 1890, gives an account 

 of a Cat which preferred raw potatoes to meat, and was once dis- 

 covered dragging a large cucumber from the dining-table in preference 

 to a lamb cutlet, equally within his reach. This Cat had been seen 

 also to eat mushrooms, stalk and all. In the same paper, under date 

 of August 6th, 1881, mention is made of a Persian torn which used 

 daily to eat two raw potatoes which were cut up for his special 

 benefit. Besides asparagus, raw potatoes, and cucumbers, Cats have 

 been known to devour raw carrots and turnips, cabbages, broccoli, 

 seakale, tomatoes, vegetable marrows, melons, and even coconuts 

 and preserved olives. f A vegetarian Cat belonging to Mr. A. H. 

 Keane, is stated by him, in the ' Field ' of August 23rd, 1881, not 

 only to have been fond of raw potatoes, tomatoes, and vegetable 

 marrows, but also to have been in the habit of searching the dust- 

 bin for the marrow seeds, of which he was very fond. A Manx Cat 

 we once had used to steal baked pears whenever he could get at 



* In this, an interesting summary of the history of the Grey Squirrel in 

 Britain, published in the ' Field ' for June 12th of the present year, Mr. 

 Boyd Watt gives as localities for colonies, besides several London ones and 

 those in Bucks and Beds, Scampston Hall, Billington, in Yorks, and a 

 territory twenty miles by five in Dumbarton. In Ken Wood, Hampstead, 

 the Grey and Red Squirrels, it seems, live together " in some numbers." — Ed. 



f See the ' Field,' August 6th, 1881. 



Zool. 4th ser, vol. XIX., October, 1915. 2 H 



