NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
295
Individual Variation in Mus sylvaticus and its allies" 2 considered
the form entitled to rank as a sub-species, and gave it the name
it now bears, in honour of its discoverer. It is a large wood-
mouse, about 41/2 inches from snout to base of tail. Mr. De
Winton thus compares it with Mus sylvaticus :—
" The general colour of the upper parts is brighter, especially along the sides
and legs, and the under parts of almost pure white, excepting the gorget or
breast-plate of clear yellowish brown ; this band is about 8 mm. broad, passing
across the chest, immediately in front of the fore legs, with a cross or longi-
tudinal stripe in the centre extending forward about 5mm.. and back along the
sternum about 10 mm., where it is entirely lost, unlike the slight dash of colour
so frequently found on the chest of Mus sylvaticus, and which varies from the
smallest spot on the breast to a decided yellow-brown tinge extending over the
whole belly. The richer colouring of the upper parts in Mus flavicollis and the
pureness of the white on the underside, with the very distinct line of demarcation,
give this mouse a peculiarly striking appearance ; it is almost as beautiful as a
squirrel. Its large ears, and wide-open prominent eyes, its long tail and hind
feet are fully as much developed in proportion to its size as in Mas sylvaticus,
consequently the measurements are greater."
Mr. De Winton mentions that, among other structural
peculiarities the tail has 30 vertebrae, whereas in M. sylvaticus
there are only 27.
The original specimens were found around Glastonbury in
Herefordshire, but it has since been noticed in several parts of
S.E., E., and N.E. England. It is recorded for Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk, by the Rev. Julian Tuck and Lieut.-Col. E. A.
Butler. On the Continent it occurs in Central and Eastern
Germany and Hungary. We hope that our zoological members
will keep a bright look-out for this handsome animal, and send
notes to the E.N. One of the keepers in Epping Forest
spoke to my brother some time ago about a mysterious large
mouse which had been seen when rabbiting.—W. Cole,
Buckhurst Hill.
Old Record of Mammoth at Walton-on-Naze.—Mr.
T. V. Holmes has kindly copied the following from the Annual
Register under date November 30th, 1803 (p. 461) :—
' By the falling down of a piece of the cliff, on Walton shore, near Harwich,
the skeleton of an enormous animal was discovered, measuring nearly 30 feet in
length. Some of the bones were nearly as large as a man's body, and six or seven
feet long ; the cavities which contained the marrow were large enough to admit
the introduction of a man's arm ; the bones, on being handled, broke to pieces.
2 Proc. Zool. Soc. (1900), pp. 387-428, pl. xxv.