A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE Mr. Lees, of Castle Street, Hinckley, being fed on sopped bread and other soft food. Towards the end of its life, so I am informed, an extra claw or two appeared on one of its fore-feet (the left one my infor- mant believes), and this grew to about three times as large as any of the others. I addressed Mr. Lingham Lees on the subject, and he replied : ' The growth on the squirrel's foot was a perfect toe with an abnor- mally large claw. All who saw it will agree with me that this was the case.' Mrs. Perry Herrick, writing in April, 1889, informed me that squirrels used to come for some years to take nuts from little stone boxes which had been placed for them outside the windows at Beaumanor, but they had then left off coming for some years. The last one I saw ran across the road, when I was driving between St. George's, Swannington and Staunton Harold, in October, 1906. It afterwards returned to a large ash-tree overhanging the road, and watched my progress from his coign of vantage. Mr. W. J. Horn, writing to me in 1906, mentions having once watched a squirrel searching the ivy of a dwelling-house. When it found a house- sparrow's nest it apparently searched the interior for eggs. The late Dr. Macaulay reported 'a pure white squirrel, with pink eyes (albino), in the possession of the Rev. A. Matthews, which was caught by a spaniel in Gumley Wood on 25 November, 1891.' 20. Dormouse. Muscardinus avellanariut, Linn. Bell Myoxus avellanarius. Locally, Hazel-Mouse, Tufted-tail Mouse. Rare. Harley wrote : ' Not common. Met with in a small wood which lies against Ravenstone and Normanton-on-Heath,' but in no other woods of the county did he discover it. The late Mr. Wid- dowson wrote, in 1885 : 'Not heard of for a certainty, save one brought in a load of oak-bark.' The late Mr. Ingram informed me in 1885 'that he had never met with it.' 21. Brown Rat. Mul decu-nanus, Pallas. Locally, Common Rat. Its distribution in the county is unfortunately too general. Varieties occasionally occur. Mr. H. A. Payne informed me that a very light cream-coloured rat was killed in Martinshaw Wood, in 1876, and was in the late Lady Stamford's possession. The late Mr. A. Paget presented to the museum a white example, which was captured in his garden in West Street, on 6 November, 1886. The specimen was a female. Varieties such as these must not, however, be con- founded with the white rats so often kept as pets ; these singularly enough so Mr. Oldfield Thomas tells me being albinos of the black rat. Relative to the latter species, Mr. F. T. Mott recorded a rather interesting young, dark variety of the common rat caught at ' New Parks,' in the early part of 1886 as a bona-fide example of Mus rattus? This he exhibited to section ' D ' of the Society on 15 September, 1886. The specimen, which by the kindness of the owner, C. Adcock, I have been enabled to examine, is dark brown above and light brown underneath, and except in size of body, does not resemble the black rat, the length of the ears being 3% in. as opposed to ^ in. occurring in two of the latter species which I received in the flesh from London ; the less breadth of the ears is also very marked, and the length of the tail is only 5^ in. as opposed to 83- in. An enormous male specimen shot with a bullet from a '410 walking-stick gun at Blaby Villa on 7 March, 1889, by Mr. W. A. Vice, was presented by him to the Leicester Museum. Mr. W. J. Horn, writing at the end of 1906, said that he had recently seen a rat running about the upper branches of a high oak tree with the agility of a squirrel, and when his terriers surprised one in a hedge-bottom, it ran to the topmost twigs of the thorn fence. He adds : ' Rats also dive well, keeping under water even longer than a water-vole, in fact till quite exhausted.' [Black Rat. Mus rattus, Linn. Not mentioned by Potter, and probably long extinct in the county, despite the assertion of its having been ' seen in some old cellars in Leicester within the last twenty years.' 10 The late Rev. Andrew Matthews, who resided in Leicestershire thirty- four years, had never heard of its occurrence, and the late Mr. Widdowson and Mr. Ingram, writing in February, 1885, were likewise agreed as to its extinction in this county. Indeed, anyone acquainted with the history of the black rat in this country must know how unlikely it is to occur, except in ancient seaports. Vide note on the preceding species.] 22. House-Mouse. Mus muiculus, Linn. Far too common. Several specimens of a curious variety were caught at Kibworth on 23 March, 1885, in taking down a cornstack belonging to Mr. Buzzard. One of them was of a dingy white, with the exception of the back, which retained faint traces of original mouse-colour, caused by the tips of the hairs being of a dusky whity-brown. As the specimen was placed in spirits I was unable to judge if the eyes were pink or black, but they appeared to be of the latter colour and indeed this has since been stated to be the case. Whether a cross between escaped albino mice and the common mouse, or merely an accidental variety, it is hard to say, but as the owners of the house do not appear to have ever kept 'white mice,' the presump- tion is in favour of the latter supposition. Mr. W. J. Horn writes in 1906: 'These also climb well. Many people who have creepers trained all over a house wonder how it is mice are found in the bed- rooms.' Two curious nests made from tow and string and built in poppy-heads, were presented in 1 899, to the Leicester Museum, by Mr. E. W. Squires of that place. 23. Long-tailed Field-Mouse. Mus sylvaticus, Linn. Locally, Wood-Mouse. Resident and generally distributed. Harley recorded that, in 1846, he examined the winter retreat of one of these mice near Bradgate Park, and was astonished at the quantity of stores which had been carried in, and which he computed at the fourth part of an imperial bushel. I received one from Belvoir on 4 July, 1885, and since then I found one dead on a small grass plot at a house, so near to the town as the Aylestone Road, and another on 1 1 December, 1 888. Mr. J. Whitaker records a pale cream-coloured ' Trans. Liic. Lit. and Phil. Sac. Jan. 1887, p. 39. 164 10 Mid. Nat. 1884, p. 302.
