of the mouse tribe, the harvest mouse (Mus messorius), the long-tailed field mouse (Mus sylvaticus), the common mouse (Mus musculus), the black rat (Mus rattus) and the brown rat (Mus decumanus): all these species are well-known animals, and nothing new occurs in their history: the others are called voles; the water rat (Arvicola amphibius), the short-tailed field mouse (A. agrestis), and the bank vole or bank mouse (A. pratensis); the last is a recent addition to our British quadrupeds for which we are indebted to Mr. Yarrell, by whom it was described in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1832, p. 109, under the name of Arvicola riparia. There appears to be a fourth species of vole indigenous to this country: it is described by Mr. Thompson under the name of Arv. neglecta, (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. vii. 274). Mr. Jenyns thinks this may prove to be the Mus agrestis of Linneus, while our short- tailed field mouse he supposes to be the Arv. arvalis of Pallas.
In the hare tribe Mr. Bell describes four species, the common hare (Lepus timidus), the Irish hare (L. hibernicus), the varying hare (L. variabilis), and the rabbit (L. cuniculus). The Irish hare is an addition to our British animals, brought into notice by the Earl of Derby.
"In the year 1833, the Earl of Derby, then Lord Stanley, and President of the Linnean Society, sent to that society a specimen of the hare of Ireland, which his lordship had obtained at Liverpool. It was described by Mr. Yarrell at that time, and subsequently at a meeting of the Zoological Society in the same year. A careful examination of several specimens has assured me that it is not merely a variety of the common hare of England, but that it is specifically distinct. The characters in which it principally differs from the latter are as follows:—It is somewhat larger; the head is rather shorter; the ears are even shorter than the head, while those of the English hare are fully an inch longer; the limbs are proportionally rather shorter; and the hinder legs do not so much exceed the fore legs in length. The character of the fur is also remarkably different: it is composed exclusively of the uniform soft and shorter hair which in the English species is mixed with the black-tipped long hairs, which give the peculiar mottled appearance of that animal; it is therefore of a uniform reddish brown colour on the back and sides. The ears are reddish grey, blackish at the tip, with a dark line near the outer margin. The tail is of nearly the same relative length as in the common species. The numerous discrepancies in the colour and texture of the fur, and in the form and proportion of the different parts of the animal, appear to me to be too important to constitute merely the characters of a variety.
"It cannot be confounded with the alpine hare, although the relative length of the ears is nearly the same; the size and form of the body, the tail, and the texture and colour of the fur being strikingly different.
"It is certainly a very remarkable circumstance that it should have remained unnoticed until so late a period; and can only be accounted for by the fact that it is the only hare found in Ireland, and that therefore the opportunity of comparison did not frequently occur. The fur of this hare, from the absence of the long fine dark hairs which constitute the beauty of the common species, is considered of no value."—p. 341.
