The last named insect is considered exceedingly destructive in gardens. Being on a visit in Staffordshire, in the month of June, I observed whole beds of strawberries (not hautboys) likely to prove nearly barren, though they had flowered copiously, and the season was favourable for a crop. I was in formed that the failure was owing to the fernshaws (the provincial name for the beetle), which are accused of eating the anthers and interior parts of the blossom. In the same garden my attention was also called to the ravages committed by this depredator on the apples, by gnawing holes m the young fruit; which consequently dies and falls off, or at least becomes much blemished. I was assured that the fernshaws had been detected in the fact; and I am rather disposed to think that the charge in both instances is well founded. I had long been aware of the insect's partiality for rosebuds and blossoms, which it greedily devours. In the north of Eng land, where it is much used as a killing bait for trout, the insect is commonly known by the name of " bracken-clock," a name of the same import with the Staffordshire term " fernshaw," each signifying " fern-beetle."

THE Fieldfare feeds on the Berries of Ivy. So does the blackbird, and so do other species of the thrush family, and probably birds of other families as well. The dryish and somewhat mealy pulp of the ivy berry seems to be the only part of it which affords them nutriment, as the skins and seeds of the berries may be found voided on the surface of the grass, soil, and wall tops, which may chance to be in the neighbourhood of the berry-bearing plants of ivy. The naked seeds of ivy, enlarged by the moisture of a bird's body, considerably resemble swollen grains of wheat; and the accurate

Ray records the following tradition founded on this resemblance :-" Grana baccis exempta, triticeis nonnihil similia, cùm a nonnullis in areis et templorum tectis a volucribus temerè sparsa inventa fuerint, occasionem illis dederunt imaginandi, rumoremque in vulgus prodigiorum credulum spargendi, tritico pluisse." Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ et Insularum adjacentium, ed. 1670, p. 160. Ray's meaning may be thus explained: The seeds removed from the berries resemble grains of wheat; and when found in open spaces, and upon the roofs of buildings, where they had been scattered by birds, have given occasion to the common people, credulous of prodigies, to rumour that the heavens have rained down wheat.

--

The Blackcap honours the Bayswater gardens with its presence and melody. It sang liberally, both last year and this, about the office of the Magazine of Natural History. I have not heeded dates, but believe that this year I did not hear it here till near the close of May, and then through June, and to the 6th of July, when I left for a ramble into the country. The blackcap, in Cambridgeshire, is the theme of an elegant and expressive simile, viz.," as cheerful as a blackcap," applied both to grown up persons of habitual cheerfulness;

"And jovial youth, of lightsome vacant heart,
Whose every day is made of melody."

Nightingales were singing in Kensington Gardens in the middle of the day (night I will not answer for,) of the 25th of April: all joy and soul they were; and the day was slightly sunny, with a cool feeble wind, after rain the day preceding: the expanding foliage of the leafing trees was all around looking lovelily, but the nightingales preferred the denser covert of the evergreen holly trees and yew trees.

The Rose Beetle, Scarabæ`us auràtus, or Cetònia auràta as now called, is not at all rare about Bayswater, where, if I rightly remember, I this spring saw specimens on the wing by the middle of April. The larvæ here inhabit the soil of the gardens, although what I have somewhere read may be very true, that their usual habitat is decayed wood. I think this species is far from plentiful in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. On the 29th of June, 1831, I saw here a fine specimen revelling luxuriously among the very numerous stamens of the Argemòne grandiflora. These being yellow in hue, and the petals of the large saucer-shaped flower snowy white, the Cetònia was, by virtue of his rich, varied, and burnished hues, a conspicuous object.

Scarabaeus hortícola, called "the chovy" in Norfolk, is there deemed very injurious to apple trees, and other trees and plants, as it feeds both on leaves and all the parts of the flower. Chovies were abundant at Thetford, Norfolk, about ten years ago; but, as far as my experience has reached, always rare about Bury St. Edmunds. On the 9th of June, 1829, I saw one in the botanic garden of the last-named town, flitting about a flowering bush of the Provence rose.

Vernal Appearances at Waterbeach, near Cambridge, April 17. 1832. — The following paragraph, extracted from a private letter, may be worth introducing here.-J. D.

"We are getting on pretty well with our gardening work, although vegetation is advancing rapidly. The plum trees will next week be in full bloom. The birds sing delightfully. A tomtit, as we call him [the common wren], who with his mate has been building a nest with us, sang this day almost as loud as a lark. A pair of robins have built a nest in my next-door neighbour's out-house, in an unoccupied birdcage. The gnats form themselves into troops of an evening, and are dancing in the beams of the setting sun. A gay species of butterfly has made its appearance, but I have not yet seen the brimstone-coloured one." -J. D. sen. April 17.

ART. II. Additions to the British Fauna; Class, Mammàlia.
By WILLIAM YARRELL, Esq. F.L. and Z.S.

HAVING devoted a portion of my leisure, during the last winter, to a close examination of all the recent specimens I could obtain, from various localities, of the smaller-sized British Mammàlia, I have been amply repaid the trouble of the investigation, by discovering two species, neither of which have as yet been admitted in any British fauna.

The first of these is a Sorex well known to Continental naturalists, whose remarks and descriptions I shall have occasion to refer to. The second is a species of Arvicola, probably hitherto confounded with the Más agrestis of Ray, which appears to be identical with the Mús agrestis of Linnæus, and also with the Mús arvàlis of Pallas: but the little animal to which I now solicit attention, I have no doubt I shall be able to prove to be perfectly distinct, and deserving a place, as a true species, in the catalogues of systematic authors. THE OARED SHREW (SO`REX REʼMIFER).

This species is at once distinguished from our more com mon water shrew, S. fòdiens, by its uniform colour. The whole of the upper part of the head, the body, and sides, are velvet black; the situation of the ear is marked by a tuft of white hairs, more conspicuous than in the water shrew, from the greater contrast of colour; under the lower jaw a small patch of light brown; under surface of the body rusty black; tail black, but with a line of pendent greyish white hairs along its under surface; feet and toes ciliated.

This Sorex is stated by Geoffroy in the Ann. Mus., and by Desmarest in his Mammalogie, to be the largest of the shrews found in France; and its measurements are stated by Desmarest to be:-length of head and body equal to 4 in. 3 lines English, the tail 2 in. 9 lines. My specimen of this shrew, which was caught in a ditch in Battersea Fields, measures in the extent of head and body but 3 in. 4 lines; the tail 1 in. 9 lines. This difference in relative size might create doubt that my specimen was the real Sorex rémiter. There is, however, in the collection at the British Museum, an example of this shrew, obtained from Mon. Baillon, the celebrated naturalist of Abbeville, and labelled by him as a specimen of the S. rémifer, the true Musaraigne port French authors. With this preserved specimen I have been very kindly permitted to compare my own shrew, in hand, side by side; and they agree in every particular, of colour, markings, and measurement, and are, in fact, perfectly iden tical. I have as yet obtained but one specimen of this shrew; but it is probable that the Sorex ciliatus of Sowerby's Brit.

t-rame

of

П..

Mis., p. 49., from a specimen taken in a ditch in Norfolk, may be considered as representing an example of S. rémifer; but the specific term ciliàtus is not sufficiently definite, as it refers to a character possessed by all the water shrews.

BANK CAMPAGNOL (ARVI'COLA RIPARIA).

The authors of our various British faunas all agree in including but two species of true campagnol (genus Arvícola Auct.). The first, A. amphibia, the water campagnol, or water rat; the second, the A. agréstis, Mús agréstis of Ray, our common short-tailed field campagnol. Both these species are too well known to require description; but it will be necessary that I should refer occasionally to the specific distinctions of the latter, in order more clearly to point out the differential characters between that and the Arvicola ripària, or bank campagnol, which I believe to be new. Mús agrestis Ray, Arvicola agréstis Fleming, Field Campagnol.-Length of the head and body, 3in. 6 lines; head only, I in. 14 line; tail, 1 in. 1 line; ears, 5 lines. Head large, muzzle blunt; ears rounded, nearly hid in the fur; tail not quite one third the length of the body; fur soft, all the upper parts reddish yellow brown, ash-grey beneath. Arvicola ripària, Bank Campagnol.-Length of head and body, 3 in. 4 lines; head only, I in. and half a line; tail, 1 in. 8 lines; ears, 5 lines. Head and muzzle stout; ears rounded, more prominent than in the field campagnol; tail exactly half the length of the body; colour of the fur deep chestnut brown above, ash-grey beneath, hairs on the tail long, adpressed, extending beyond the end of the last vertebra. The external differences are in the size and colour of the body, and relative length of tail. Two skeletons of each species have been set up, and the following are the comparative measurements:

Length of the head

Field Campagnol.

inches. lines.

Bank Campagnol.

inches. lines.

First dorsal vertebra, to the tuberosity

From the first dorsal vertebra to the last 0
Length of the six lumbar vertebræ

The number of cervical, dorsal, lumbar, and sacral vertebræ is the same in both, viz. seven, thirteen, six, and one, respectively: but the tail of the field campagnol has but nineteen vertebræ ; that of the bank campagnol contains four more, making twenty-three. It will also be seen, by a reference to the measurement, that the relative dimensions of the body and tail, in each, are nearly reversed. The field campagnol has the cavity of the thorax of much larger size than that of the bank campagnol, the ribs of greater expansion, and the sternum longer. The head of the bank

campagnol is shorter, and more square in its form, exhibiting a greater appearance of strength; and although a smaller animal, with a shorter back, as well as shorter limbs, it has actually longer feet.

In the viscera of the thorax I observed no difference. The stomachs in each appeared also of the same form, and both presented an apparent contraction, at the distance of one third from the cardiac orifice. The liver of the bank campagnol was more extensively divided than that of the field campagnol, and contained seven distinct lobes, while that of the latter presented but five. Both species are equally devoid of gall bladder. The difference in the comparative length of the small and large intestines was, however, most decided:

These measurements, in which, it will be observed, the proportions are reversed, appear to indicate some variety in their choice of food, with which I am not as yet acquainted, and the contents of the stomachs were too far digested to assist me.

A fourth series of points of distinction may be drawn from their habits. The bank campagnol frequents hedge bottoms and ditch banks; from which circumstances I was induced to adopt the specific term ripària: it is also said to make its nest of wool. The field campagnol, on the contrary, prefers living among the long herbage of water meadows and moist pastures, and makes its nest of dried grass.

If I am correct in my opinion, that the evidence here produced is conclusive as to the distinction of these two species, more precise systematic characters will be necessary; and I venture to propose their separation in the following terms:Field Campagnol, Arvícola agrestis.—Suprà rufescenti-fusca, subtùs cinerea; auriculis vix prominulis; cauda tertiam partem corporis longitudine vix æquante.

Bank Campagnol, Arvicola ripària.— Suprà saturatè castaneo-rufescens, subtùs cinerea; auriculis paulò prominulis; cauda dimidium corporis longitudine æquante, apice pilis subelongatis.

The first specimen I obtained of this new species was from Birchanger, in Essex; and, by the assistance of kind and zealous friends, I have since obtained two other examples from the same locality. I have also received specimens from three other counties, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, and Berkshire; but it is by no means so common as the short-tailed field campagnol.

P.S. Since sending you an account of the occurrence of the cared shrew (Sorex remifer) at Battersea, and probably also in Norfolk, I have received a communication from my friend, the Rev. L. Jenyns, who is at present engaged in preparing a Manual of the British Vertebrata, that he has himself taken an example of this species of shrew, in a corn field near the fens in Cambridgeshire, since my notice was written.-H. Y. Aug. 15, 1832,