NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
95 
more : they were very inanimate and cold and resembled, with the exception of 
their snouts and massive feet, young rats, with hardly any hair, and that then 
was in patches. I restored them to their mother after considerable trouble. It 
is not given to everyone to find a nest of moles. 
Rhyl. F. L. Rawlins 
Moles and Weasels. — I look upon weasels as one of the mole’s greatest 
enemies ; and have not unfrequenlly heard of mole-catchers taking weasels in 
their traps. Not long ago I watched a pair of weasels for a considerable time. 
They visited every hole and corner in the hedge and open ground around me ; 
and several times I succeeded in calling them out of the runs made by moles 
which they had entered. At last they ran down the road past the village school, 
and I drove them back into the field, for I feared they would be seen, and their 
lives forfeited. Round here game is carefully preserved, and moles flourish to 
such an extent as to be very troublesome. This I attribute in no slight degree to 
the scarcity of weasels ; and the more I penetrate into the gamekeepers’ domain 
the more the signs of moles are to be seen. In short, in a part of the world 
where rats, field mice, and moles are a scourge, a few pairs of weasels do much 
useful work. 
Market IVestOfi, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubkny. 
April, I go I. 
Bats. — The superstition (sic) regarding bats taking a special delight in 
entangling themselves in the hair of girls and clutching the head, which Captain 
Daubeny alludes to, is not at all confined to Russia. I think it is common to 
most countries of the continent. I remember when I was a girl at school in 
Germany that the German girls believed in it thoroughly. Sometimes a bat 
found its way into the plain little Moravian chapel during the quiet Sunday 
evening service, and we all watched it with feelings of terror, the little white net 
caps which we wore in church being, we considered, no protection from the 
clutches of the ill-omened creature. 
Jean A. Owen. 
Field Mouse. — When removing a hive of dead bees last week I found in 
the back of the hive a nest containing a dead mouse. I do not think field mice 
hibernate. I knew this mouse was about, as he was making free with my apples. 
I have been wondering whether, having made no provision for his winter supply, 
he died when the apples were exhausted ; and I want to know, too, why these 
mice only sleep one in a bed ? 
Rhyl. F. L. Rawlins. 
Is the Water Rat Vegetarian ? — That he certainly is. I have often 
watched him feeding on the tender red shoots of the willow. But is he entirely 
so? When a little boy I ofien fished in a small Welsh mill stream, between two 
bends of a larger river. In this was a large shoal of salmon-fry, which had been 
prevented from descending to the sea, and were pent up within a small area. 
Every hour or so, a rat dived from its hole in the bank and returned with a 
silvery fish in its clutches. At the time I supposed it to be a “ water-rat,” but 
have since doubted whether it was not one of the common brown species. The 
question is one of some importance — to the rat ; but it also concerns the fish. I 
remember the publication of the Rev. J. G. Wood’s works, which loudly pro- 
claimed the inoffensiveness of the water-vole. The animal had previously been 
regarded as destructive, and had been shot at sight accordingly. It then forth- 
with received complete immunity from the keeper’s gun. Does it wholly merit 
this? I should be glad to learn if the point has been authenticated by dissection 
or otherwise. 
6, Gloucester Place, Herhert Snow. 
Portman Square, IV. 
Pole-cats. — I shall feel obliged to any members who will report the 
appearance of pole-cats. I saw in the paper last week that one had been caught 
near Moulton. I am afraid they are practically extinct. 
Rhyl, N. Wales. Frank L. Rawlins. 
Homing Instinct in Pigs. — Domestic pigs are not generally considered 
to be romantic animals, so that all lovers of anecdote will, I am sure, welcome 
