A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE to a bright patch. The tail was distinctly tipped with white. Another buff-coloured variety, from Wanlip Lane, reached the museum through Mr. A. Merrall in 1 86 1. One, of a curious pale silver-grey colour, the first observed in the county, from South Croxton, was presented to the museum in 1902 by the Rev. F. E. Horwood. The latest record is a ' perfectly white mole ' 4 captured at Hathern. i o. Common Shrew. Sorex araneus, Linn. Resident and generally distributed. Harley re- marked upon the great numbers found dead every autumn, in pathways near farms and outbuildings a fact well known, but which has not yet, I believe, been satisfactorily explained. Mr. W. Whitaker, of Wistow Grange, informed me in September, 1885, that a man named Storer had a white shrew, killed at Market Bosworth. Mr. Horn, writing in 1906, said that two had been found dead in his house recently, which he assumed had been killed and brought in by the cats. 1 1 . Water-Shrew. Neomysfodiens, Pallas. Bell Crossopus fodlens. Harley wrote : ' Not common. Occasionally met with on the banks of water-courses and drains in the meadow-lands near LoughboroV The late Mr. Widdowson wrote in February, 1885 : 'I know one locality they frequented a few years ago namely, Sysonby, about a mile from Melton.' Mr. F. Bates told me in 1885 that he had found them some years before at Narborough. Mr. J. S. Ellis informed me in 1885 that some five-and-twenty years previously, when he lived at Glenfield Lodge, he remembered one day seeing a water-shrew swimming and diving in a small pond, endeavouring to capture a frog, but although successful in bringing it to the bank half a dozen times, was unable to drag it out. Mr. W. H. Thomson has noticed the water-shrew in a brook which runs past Stoughton Grange, close to Leicester. He appears to know the animal well, as he says : ' It had its habitat in a small hole in the bank. They were called water-mice by us.' CARNIVORA 12. Fox. Vulfes vu/pes, Linn. Bell Vulpes vulgari.'. Resident and generally distributed. The following incident, related by my friend the late Dr. Macaulay, of Kibworth, occurred on the farm of Mr. J. Perkins at Laughton, who vouches for the facts : A labourer at work in a ploughed field saw a fox come through the hedge with a rabbit in his mouth, pro- ceeding some distance into the field he laid the rabbit down, and scratching a hole placed the rabbit therein, covered it over, and then departed. When the fox was gone the man went to the place and took up the rabbit. About an hour afterwards he saw two foxes come into the field and go straight to the spot where the rabbit had been buried. One of them began to search for it, being joined in this operation by the other. After a few minutes had thus been spent in fruitless search, the two foxes fell upon each other and a fierce battle ensued until the spectator approached the combatants and separated them. Probably the first fox had invited his friend to dine, and the latter, thinking himself the victim of a hoax, endeavoured to be revenged on his friend by thrashing him. The late Mr. R. Widdowson, a well-known taxidermist of Melton Mowbray, writing to me in February, 1885, said that he had lately set up a fox shot in his neighbourhood whilst attempting to carry away three large fowls at once. That the fox and badger will live on terms of amity one with the other is borne out by the late Mr. Alfred Ellis, who recorded this as occurring at ' The Brand ' for at least six years. 5 This also occurs at Hungerton ' Foxholes,' near Ingarsby. I saw at Pinchen's in February, 1891, a mounted specimen in which all the under parts, which are usually white, were of a sooty black. Mr. W. J. Horn, writing to me at the beginning of 1907, says : ' A vixen not long since laid up her cubs in a stick-heap in the town of Market Harborough. 4 Daily Mail, 18 Jan. 1907. 5 Zoo/. (1880), pp. 5-9. In August last I was present when a field of wheat was being cut five foxes were put out.' 1 3. Pine-Marten. Mustela martes, Linn. Bell Martes abietum. Locally, Marten-Cat. Now quite extinct. Harley wrote of this species (which he called Mustela foina 6 ) : ' Annually becoming rare. Occurred a few years since in the woods at Gopsall. The writer had an opportunity afforded him some years since of examining a female and young of this species of mustela, which had been captured on Earl Howe's estate, situate on the western side of the county. The occurrence of the marten in any district around Leicester must be considered rare and unusual. Affects decayed and hollow trees in which it brings forth its young. Preys much on young birds and small Mammalia.' I can find no recent notices of its capture in Leicestershire ; there is, however, an old specimen in the Leicester Museum, supposed to be from Wellesborough, and another I had an opportunity of examining at Bradgate House is reported by Mr. H. A. Payne, of Enville, to have been killed at Bradgate about 1868 by Thomas Mennell. The late Mr. R. Widdowson wrote : ' When I first came to reside in Melton, I went over to Leicester several times and used to call on a Mr. Pickard, a hairdresser who lived in the little lane leading out of the market-place, just above the White Swan Inn. He was a taxidermist also, and I well remember seeing some martens which he had just stuffed, an adult female and two young ones which he told me were killed a few miles away, I believe at Bradgate. He had the adult a long time and used to exhibit it in his window, and was very fond of talking about it, declaring that it was brought to him alive. I also remember hearing that one was 6 M. foina, of Linnaeus, Gmelin, Erxleben, Jenyns, &c., is, however, the continental beech-marten, and, despite the records of the older British naturalists, has never occurred in Britain, but has been confused with the pine-marten, which was at one time considered the rarer animal. (See R. Alston, in Prof. Zoo/. Soc. 1879 ; also Zoo/. 1879, pp. 441 8.) I 60
