NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
75 
February and March; Journal of Applied Microscopy, November, 1898; Seventh 
Annual Report of the IVomen's Branch of the Horticultural College, Swanky ; 
Annual Report of the Bristol Libraries Committee, and Science Work, No. 2, 
March. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Cannibalism of Dormice. — I am writing as I thought some of your 
readers might be able to explain the following ; — About a fortnight ago I had a 
pair of dormice in a large roomy cage with sleeping apartment and nest of felt. 
When feeding them as usual one night I noticed that very little of the food was 
touched, so taking down the cage I took out the fem.ale mouse and felt inside for 
the male, but could not find him ; so I took out the felt nest (which I had had 
made of a round chocolate-box filled with felt) and in the loose felt at the back I 
found the male mouse dead with a hole bitten in his side and his inside eaten out. 
No wild mouse could have possibly got into the cage, as it is wired with very fine 
square mesh wire. This looks like murder and cannibalism on the part of the 
female mouse. Can any of your readers give a similar experience ? 
Warwick House, Cheltenham. Chas. A. A. Dighton. 
The Toad. — My experience of toads is that they bury themselves in winter, 
and in the case of one which I watched for three years, in a very dry place. He 
took up his abode in my fernery, and one spring morning I saw a portion of the 
surface, which was particularly fine, dry and smooth, heaving as if some living 
thing were beneath, which proved to be a large toad waking from his winter’s 
sleep. One day we saw him sitting very still with his head on one side in a 
listening attitude close to an old root, and in about an hour’s time the air was 
full of winged ants which had come out of the ground at his feet, and which he 
was catching with his long tongue, at the same time closing his eyes and making 
terrible grimaces, painfully suggestive of choking. The next winter he buried 
himself again, not far from his first nest, and in spite of careful watching I did not 
see how he did it. The next year I caught him in the act and watched him with 
great interest from behind some creepers. He had chosen a different place and 
had got his hind legs into a slight hollow in the ground, and was shovelling the 
fine earth with his hind feet, in showers over his back, forwards. Unfortunately, 
in my eagerness to see better, 1 suppose I made a slight noise, for he suddenly 
ceased and marched indignantly off across the path to a more secluded ivy-covered 
corner, and to my great disappointment did not return. The way in which he 
shot the earth over himself quite explained the fine even surface which was pre- 
sented when he was completely buried, and which never suggested the possibility 
of such a large animal being secreted underneath. My great desire is to see a 
toad cast his coat, roll it up and swallow it, as it is said they do. Is this a fact ? 
M. S. Y. 
Cock Pbeasant Rearing Young. — A friend whom I often consult on 
matters relating to Natural History, and in whom I have every confidence, sends 
me the following account of a cock pheasant’s doings, which occurred at Euston, 
the seat of the Duke of Grafton, a few miles from here. My friend has supplied 
me with the names of the persons who saw the bird, which I have omitted 
here. “ Five or six years ago J. B., who was watcher on the Home beat, found in 
a covert there, called Gravel Pit Hill, on the Barnham Road, a cock pheasant 
sitting on eggs. He saw him repeatedly, and never saw a hen near the nest. 
One day he saw him off the nest about twenty yards away feeding, and the bird 
clapped his wings, and crowed like any other cock. Having finished he went 
back to the nest. A stoat, or some other beast, took some of the eggs till there 
were only four. The keeper of the beat, by nais.e S , filled up the nest with 
other eggs, until there were either nine or eleven. These the bird hatched, and 
was seen feeding with them until they were as big as partridges. B. is sure that 
