31 



FIELD NOTES. 



MAMMALS. 



Occurrence of the Black Rat (Mus rattus) at Middles- 

 brough, Yorkshire. — Some few months ago at one of the 



meeting's held by the Cleveland Naturalists' Field Club, a case 

 of Black Rats [Mus rattus) was exhibited, the specimens having 

 been taken at Stockton-on-Tees, in the county of Durham, 

 where the species seems to occur frequently in the old ware- 

 houses and buildings in the vicinity of the river Tees. The 

 above exhibit led to one of our menibers remarking" to me, when 

 seeing him a short time since at his works at Middlesbrough, 

 that his workmen had been trapping rats for some time, and 

 noticing they were very dark coloured, it occurred to him 

 that they might be the Black Rat. I asked him to send me the 

 next one that was caught, the result being that he sent me 

 a specimen on nth November last, and it turned out to be, as 

 he surmised, a specimen of the Black Rat (M. rattus). It had 

 been slightly damaged in trapping. This is a rather interesting- 

 occurrence, especially seeing that Middlesbrough is altogether 

 a modern town, and has practically none of the old warehouses 

 and buildings which this species is said to frequent, our oldest 

 buildings, with one or two exceptions, only dating back a 

 matter of 60 or 70 years. A local taxidermist informs me that 

 on two occasions within the past few years he has had 

 Middlesbrough specimens. It is possibly a species that is 

 very much overlooked, and is probably of very much commoner 

 occurrence than is orenerally credited. — T. Ashton Lofthouse, 

 The Croft, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, 3rd December 1903. 



[This species is not at all uncommon in some of the ware- 

 houses at Hull. — Eds.] 



^« 



BIRDS. 



Kingfisher at Wirksvvorth, Derbyshire. — A few days ago 

 my father observed a specimen of the Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida 

 L. ) flying over a small artificial pond which occupies a hollow 

 at the bottom of his kitchen garden at Wirksworth. The 

 beautiful visitor had evidently spotted the little piece of water in 

 the course of a foraging expedition. The most likely permanent 

 habitat in the neighbourhood is the Derwent, about two miles 

 to the east, but there are also nearer the little Ecclesbourne 

 brook and a few fair-sized ponds in woods and parks in the 

 immediate neighbourhood. — Thos. Gibbs, 197, Cemetery Road, 

 Sheffield, 13th December 1903. 



1904 January i. 



