MAMMALS [Harvest Mouse. Mus minutus, Pallas. Although I am tolerably certain that this mouse does exist in small numbers and very locally in south Derbyshire, it must be con- fessed that the evidence is somewhat meagre. Glover mentions it when treating of the short-tailed field mouse, and gives some account of its habits. J. J. Briggs (Reli- quary, 1862, p. 160) remarks : 'Is occasionally found in this county.' Mr. E. Brown was satisfied that a nest found near Burton, and described to him, belonged to this species. Some nests which were brought to me about 1 880 certainly appeared to be those of harvest mice, and I am assured that several nests were found in cornfields at Snelston in 1900 and that the mice themselves were identified.] 26. Water Vole. Microtus amphibius. Linn. Bell Arvicola amphibius. Locally, Water Rat. Remains of this species have been found, often in large numbers, in the barrows of Derbyshire. At the present time it is found commonly in all our slow flowing streams, but becomes scarcer where the fall is rapid and the bottom stony. Its remains are some- times, but rarely, found in owl pellets. 27. Field Vole. Microtus agrestis, Linn. Found commonly in meadows, especially those which lie low. Although in some years very numerous we have never yet experienced a vole plague in Derbyshire. Many hundreds are destroyed annually by the owls which escape the pole trap and the gun. 28. Bank Vole. Evotomys glareolus, Schreber. Bell Arvicola glareolus. Locally, Fox Mouse. This species was overlooked by earlier writers on Derbyshire zoology, but in 1 863 the Rev. H. H. Crewe took six specimens in a plantation near Calke Abbey (Nat. Hist, of Tutbury, Addenda, p. 407). Since that time it has been found in several parts of the county, and its remains have been identified in considerable numbers in owl pellets from the Dove valley (L. E. Adams). I find it rather local in south-west Derbyshire, but not uncommon, haunting the neighbourhood of woods and gardens. 29. Hare. Lepus europieus, Pallas. Bell Lepus timidus. Still fairly common in some parts, but greatly diminished in numbers except where preserved for sporting purposes. Mr. E. Brown notes a light buff variety as occasion- ally met with. 30. Varying or Blue Hare. Lepus timidus, Linn. Bell Lepus variabiBi. Locally, Moor Hare. A recent introduction to the Yorkshire moors, where it is now established and has ex- tended its range to the moors of north Derby- shire. Mr. T. A. Coward informs me that some time in the sixties Colonel J. Crompton Lees turned out some blue hares on his moors at Greenfield, Yorkshire, but they gradually decreased in number and finally became extinct. About 1 880-2 a further consign- ment of fifty Perthshire hares was received, and these have steadily increased in numbers since that time and have now spread over a large tract of moorland in Yorkshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire. At the present time they are very numerous on the Derwent moors (cf. Zool. 1895, p. 176 ; 1901, pp. 73,223). 31. Rabbit. Lepus cuniculus, Linn. Locally, Coney. Common in most parts of the county, especially where the soil is light and sandy. Black individuals occur not infrequently, and formerly Sudbury Park was inhabited entirely by this variety. UNGULATA 32. Red Deer. Cervus elapbus, Linn. At the present time this species only exists in a semi-domesticated condition in the parks at Chatsworth, Hardwick and Calke Abbey. As Chatsworth was enclosed early in the fifteenth century and the wild red deer of the Peak Forest are known to have survived till about the year 1 600 it is possible that this herd may be partly descended from the old Derbyshire stock. Pilkington however in 1789 wrote thus : 'Yet I believe the fallow deer are the only species now to be met with in Derbyshire ' (perhaps meaning in a wild state). Glover says : ' A few are kept in parks. . . . This species of animal, now almost if not quite extinct in this country, at one period inhabited the Peak Forest,' etc. R. Garner, on the authority of Sir O. Mosley, says that after the enclosure of Need- wood Forest at the beginning of the last 157
