MAMMALS gardens and orchards. It is no doubt often confounded by superficial observers with the last mentioned species, but may easily be dis- tinguished from it, not only by its teeth, but by its larger eyes, longer tail and ears (the latter showing well beyond the fur), and by the warm ruddy tint on the back of adult examples. It is also more lively and rapid in its movements. In the autumn it climbs about the hedges with the greatest ease in search of ripe haws, and the writer once noticed one early in May perched high up in a tall hedge at Farnham, feeding on the tender young leaves of the hawthorn. In the winter the bank vole sometimes enters outhouses where seeds, bulbs, etc., are kept, and es- pecially buildings used for storing apples and pears, from which it is sometimes difficult to exclude it. In an apple-house in the midst of a plantation at Blaxhall, several examples are caught almost every season. A few years ago several were found in a heap of mangolds or beetroot (locally a ' beet clamp ') at Leiston. They had made a nest among the litter with which the roots were covered before being banked up with earth. This little animal is easily tamed, and is very amusing in its ways. One kept for two years at Blaxhall would feed quite readily from the hand. This, as well as several others kept there at different times as pets, had been rescued when quite young from the jaws of a cat. The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain found twelve skulls of this species in pellets of the barn owl {Strix flammea) at Huntingfield. 33. Common Hare. Lepm europaus, Pallas. Bell — Lepus tlmldus. Common, but not so abundant as it was thirty or forty years ago. At that time, on some of the large estates towards the coast, an enormous stock of hares was kept up, re- sulting in a considerable proportion of under- sized and diseased animals. Some curious varieties have occurred from time to time. Mr. Alexander Clark-Kennedy {Zool. 1869, p. 1558) states that a hare with white and iron grey markings was shot near Easton by the late Duke of Hamilton, in November 1868. The head, ears and part of the neck were white, mingled with grey ; the legs, feet, with part of the chest and of the back, white. A grey female is reported by Mr. T. E. Gunn {Zool. 1868, p. 1129) as having been killed near Wangford in January 1868. In this example the whole surface of the coat was of a silver greyish hue, suflused with a pale reddish tinge on the head, ears, neck and flanks. Mr. H. C. Hudson, taxidermist of Ipswich, informs me that a pale sandy variety, ap- proaching white, was shot in or close to the parish of Woolverstone in January 1893. In the Zoologist for 1843, p. 342, there is a notice of a black hare killed at Glemsford, then to be seen in the Sudbury Museum.^ A perfectly black specimen shot at Brome, on the estate of the late Sir Edward Kerrison, Bart., in January 1855, was for nearly half a century a conspicuous object in the Ipswich Museum, but has at last apparently vanished from mortal ken. A third black hare killed at Denham, near Bury St. Edmunds, is men- tioned by Mr. Southwell in an article on the ' Mammalia and Reptilia of Norfolk ' {Zool. 1 87 1, p. 2757), on the authority of the late Mr. J. H. Gurney.' Yet another example of this rare variety has been obtained at Bel- champ St. Pauls in Essex, just beyond the Suffolk boundary. The occurrence was re- corded by Mr. G. W. Eagle in the Field, the exact date of which I am unable to supply. That hares are good and bold swimmers is well known. They have now and then been seen crossing the river Ore, below Orford, to and from the long narrow strip of beach be- tween that river and the sea, and have been caught in the water on their passage. 34. Rabbit. Lepus cuniculus, Linn. Abundant everywhere, but especially so in the 'Breck' district in the north-west, and on the light sandy soil stretching along the coast. The silver sprig or silver grey variety flourished exceedingly on Thetford Warren from the year 1837 to about 1888; after which time the skins appear to have declined in value. In the middle of the last century 20,000 were annually sent to London from this warren alone.^ In 1883 Mr. F. Nor- gate counted on Thetford Warren sixty silver greys in sight at the same time, besides many other rabbits. Mr. S. R. Lingwood, in a letter dated 16 February 1903, writes: *At the present time their skins are of no more value than the ordinary grey, hardly so much. Some 40 or 50 years ago the skin was of more value than the carcase.' The variety appears to be dying out, from repeated crossing with the normal type. A black variety is not uncommon in many districts ; sandy coloured rabbits are also occasionally met with, some of them of a beautiful bright tint inclining ' This museum is no longer in existence. ' Trans. Norf. and Nor. Nat.Soc. 1869-70, p. 26. ' For this information the writer is indebted to Mr. W. G. Clarke of Norwich. 231
