NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
19 7 
mouse, and in that instance the “song” strongly reminded me of the soft 
twittering of young birds, and also struck me as being of a ventriloquial character. 
Fyfield , Abingdon. W. II. Warner. 
Yellow-Necked Mouse (A/ns fiavicollis). Can any reader or contributor 
of Nature Notes give me a little information as to the occurrence or habits 
of this species of mouse, other that what is given in Mr. Lydekker’s “ British 
Mammals.” It is there said to be exceedingly abundant in Herefordshire, but 
no other locality is mentioned. 
Fyfield, Abingdon. W. II. Warner. 
Rats carrying Eggs.— Some fifteen years ago I kept tame rats, and 
was always amused at their antics when I gave them eggs as food. On these 
occasions, in fine weather, I would permit them to play with them on the lawn ; 
they showed marked dexterity in trundling the eggs, guiding them as carefully 
as a brewer’s man would a barrel of beer, and with great rapidity, using the nose 
and the two forepaws. On becoming tired of the game they would sit on their 
hind quarters and with teeth and nails bore a hole sufficiently large for the 
insertion of the nose, and in this way suck the egg perfectly dry. 1 therefore 
see no reason why, during the dark hours of night, several rats could not clear 
a hen’s nest of all the eggs and take them a considerable distance. I venture 
to think, in the case mentioned by one of your contributors, that the eggs 
must have been in the nest of a fowl which had laid “ away from home ” ; 
but even should that not have been the case, a rat is perfectly able to stand 
on its hind legs and hold an egg in the same manner as a squirrel holds a nut ; 
the eggs could be handed from the one in the nest to the other below. I, 
however, place more faith in the suggestion of the outside ground nest. 
The great sagacity of rats has long been known ; the late h rank Buckland 
gave it as his opinion, that among the smaller order of mammals the rat in 
intelligence was much ahead of all his confreres. W. H. McG. 
Pei haps Mr. E. T. Daubeny would like to know what has been said by Mr. 
Ike Matthews, professional ratcatcher of Manchester, on this subject, in a most 
naive and entertaining little book recently published (“ The Revelations of a 
Ratcatcher”) : “ I have read of many ways in which rats take eggs, but in my 
quarter of a century’s experience of ratting I never saw rats take eggs save in 
one way, and that is dragging or rolling them along the floor with their front 
paws until they get them to the mouth of the hole. I remember one place 
where I was ferreting. There was an old cellar, the door of which at the top 
of the steps had to my knowledge been nailed up two or three years. Out of 
the hen-house the rats had eaten a hole at each side of the cellar door at the 
bottom. One day we burst open the door, went into the cellar (where it was 
impossible for a hen to get whilst the door was closed), and beneath the bottom 
steps we caught two rats. On lifting the flag at the bottom of the steps we found 
fifteen whole eggs, some good and some bad, all of which I am quite satisfied the 
rats had carried down those nine steps.” Mr. Matthews shows himself a careful 
observer, and he never ventures into the tempting realm of conjecture, so 
attempts no explanation of a feat he did not actually witness. E. D. C. 
20, Pembroke Road, Kensington, IV. 
Rats, "Water, and Moorhens. — For many years I have tried to induce 
moorfowl (moorhens) to take up their abode at a stagnant pool of water in my 
fields. At last I am pleased to find it occupied by these interesting shy birds. 
But I find it also visited or infested by common rats from acorn field, which, I see 
by their runs across a meadow, is somewhere about 200 yards from the nearest 
water during this exceedingly dry time, the brooks being dried up. I caught one 
in the run, and mean to catch other travellers along this route. It is wonderful 
how exact rats are in traversing the exact run, when once it is laid down, however 
winding the path. J. Hiam. 
A st-wood Bank. 
Caged Birds. — I quite agree in the remarks of Mr. Horatio R. Filmer on 
pages 176-7. I have for the past fifty years scarcely been without a caged bird 
for a pet, and hope to have one or two as long as I live. At the same time I love 
to see certain birds enjoying themselves as free as the air they breathe. There is 
