( 135 ) 
XVIII. 
NOTES ON SOME HERTFORDSHIRE MAMMALIA. 
By A. E. Gibbs, E.L.S., E.R.H.S. 
Read at Watford, 3rd February , 1904. 
Albinism. 
Albino specimens of two of our common Insectivora have 
recently been added to the collections at the County Museum. 
The cream-coloured mole ( Talpa europcea ) was killed in House- 
barn Lane, Watford, in the year 1901. The occurrence of albinism 
in this species is apparently not unusual, for in 1883 the late 
Dr. Brett reported to this Society the finding of thirty moles of 
a white or cream colour in about half an acre of oats near Watford.* 
There have been one or two subsequent records of the appear¬ 
ance of this variety in the neighbourhood, Mr. Vaughan Roberts 
exhibiting some specimens taken at Ley Farm, between Watford 
and St. Albans, at a meeting of this Society held on the 11th of 
December, I891.f Again, in June last Mr. T. Fowell Buxton, J.P., 
of Easneye, Ware, informed me that a mole, nearly white, with 
the under-fur of a light pink colour, was killed on the Waters Place 
Farm, near Ware, on Friday the 19th of that month. 
The second example of albinism to which I have to draw your 
attention is a greater rarity. The beautiful little specimen of the 
common shrew ( Sorex aaraneus) was taken in July last under 
a haycock on Symond’s Hyde Farm, by Mr. B. L. Braithwaite, 
and was sent to the County Museum by Mr. T. Brown, a careful 
observer, to whom we are indebted for many gifts. It was captured 
alive, and was kept for a few days in a cage and fed on worms. It 
had a most voracious appetite, and apparently killed itself by over¬ 
feeding. Air. Brown informs me that the last time it was seen to 
feed it devoured a whole worm about 4 inches long and as thick as 
a lead pencil. The next morning it was found dead. Mr. Cross¬ 
man, who formerly acted as one of our Recorders, in an article on 
“Hertfordshire Mammalia” in the ‘Victoria County History,’J 
records the fact that in 1893 Air. Henry Lewis, of St. Albans, 
obtained two white specimens of the common shrew near that city, 
and remarks that “this is a most unusual occurrence, as albinism 
is seldom found in this species.” I believe Mr. Lewis’s specimens 
are now at the Natural History Aluseum, South Kensington. 
The Rodents. 
Three small rodents, viz., the dormouse ( Mascardinus avellanarius), 
the wood-mouse ( Mus sylvaticus), and the bank-vole ( Microtus 
glareolus ), are to be found commonly in the meadows attached to 
my house, the two latter having been especially abundant during 
the Autumn of 1903. 
* ‘Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc.,’ Vol. II, p. liv. 
t Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 43. 
+ ‘ Victoria History of Hertfordshire,’ vol. i, p. 218. 
