Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for

some probability to the theory which ascribes to the suborbital sinuses a sexual relation.-R. O.]

[It seems probable that these organs, on the use of which it is by no means creditable to naturalists to have now to speculate, may be designed for the promotion of that intimate acquaintance between animals of the same species which a primary law of nature requires: but it would be difficult to explain in what manner they may avail to such an end. That they have some connexion with the full developement of the animal powers will appear, I think, from the consideration of a series of individuals now living at the Zoological Society's Gardens.

Among the whole of the deer and antelopes that are provided with suborbital sinuses, none have them more strongly marked than the Indian antelope; and in none of those animals are they more frequently brought into use. A fully grown male, the moment you approach him, throws back his head and thrusts himself rapidly forwards, as though about to make an attack; but the backward direction of his long spirally twisted horns, and the freedom with which he offers to you his exposed neck and chest, are scarcely indicative of a hostile movement. He has at this time fully expanded the large bag beneath his eye; its thick lips, which pout considerably in the quiet state of the animal, are widely separated and thrown back; and the intervening space is actually everted, the base of the sac forming a projection instead of a hollow. We see the bare skin, covered only by a coating of a dark ceruminous secretion. This, if the hand be within his reach, the animal attempts to rub against the knuckles; and we then feel that though the lining skin of the sac has no general covering of hair, it is not destitute of a few bristles, which grate against the finger subjected to the friction. The friction is evidently agreeable to the animal, for it is often repeated: at times, it is even continued for a minute or two. After the finger has been subjected for some time to this rubbing, it will be found to have acquired a heavy odour, of a salt and peculiar character.

The Zoological Society has at present, in its gardens in the Regent's Park, four individuals of the Indian antelope: an adult and aged male, brought by Col. Sykes from Bombay, and presented to the Society nearly five years ago; a younger, yet adult, male, that was presented, in an immature condition, about two years since; an immature male, lately arrived, and in about the same state of developement as that in which the last mentioned individual was when he was originally presented; and an emasculated specimen of full growth. The series is singularly complete as regards one sex: the other sex has not yet been possessed by the Society, and is, indeed, rarely seen in Europe. Destitute of horns, and never acquiring the rich deep colour of the males, the female is probably considered as less worthy of exportation from the native country of the species.

During the time that the old male has remained in the Gardens he has constantly behaved in the manner described above: the conduct of his

they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or

several predecessors has been precisely similar. He widely expands the suborbital sinus, and brings it near to any substance offered to him; he might even be suspected of a disposition to test, by some special sense lodged in it, the nature of the substance offered: but he usually drives the naked and everted skin against the hand, either thrusting it repeatedly or rubbing it. The peculiar odour is freely imparted to the substance rubbed, but seems to offer no special attraction to his senses: he neither smells to it remarkably, nor licks it. The second male, whose horns have about three-fourths of their full growth, and whose rich colours are only less deep than those of his more aged neighbour, acts in a similar manner. His suborbital sinus, though strongly developed, is not so extensive as that of the older animal: in its quiet state it is scarcely completely closed, so thick are its lips; in its condition of excitement it is widely expanded. The animal then thrusts it at the offered hand; but does not exhibit an equal readiness to rub it. The youngest male is evidently immature; its horns have only commenced making their first spiral turn, and its colour is the fawn of the female, with her pale stripe along the side: for in the Indian antelope, as in most animals in which the adult males differ in colour from the females, the young of both sexes are similarly coloured, and resemble the dam. In this individual the suborbital sinus is small; its lips are closely applied to each other; and they are but slightly moved when the animal is interested: if he uses his nose, the sac is called into moderate action. He cares little for the odour of his older relatives. The remaining specimen was probably of nearly the same age with this younger male when that occurred which, while it allowed of the animal's increasing in bulk, checked the developement of the external characters that belong to the mature male. Its advance towards perfection was arrested while the female livery of the young animal was yet retained, and its colour is the fawn of the female with the side marked lengthways by her paler line. Its horn too, normal in its character as far as a point corresponding with the early part of the first spiral turn, and about this point regularly ringed, afterwards loses the form characteristic of the species, and instead of being completed by a continuous series of spiral turns, surrounded by strongly marked rings, becomes smooth, continues slender, and is directed backwards in one single large sweep; forming a horn altogether monstrous, and one which is sheep-like, though infinitely weak, rather than antilopine: only one such horn remains. In this animal the suborbital sinus is not more developed than in the youngest and immature male, and it is quite unused: the sinus is little more than a mark existing in the ordinary situation, and no motion whatever is observed in its lips; it is not applied to any substance brought near to it, the nose being usually employed. A finger loaded with the secretion from the sac of the mature male is smelt to by this individual; and is then freely licked perhaps on account of its saltness alone, but probably also on account of some other and peculiar attraction. The same cause which induced the

laboured in that hot climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.

Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags have four spiracula:

retention by this individual of the immature colours, and which arrested the perfect growth of the horns, has also, I do not hesitate in believing, checked the developement of the suborbital sinuses and rendered them useless.

I am not disposed, on this occasion, to enter farther into the speculations which might be founded on the facts just recorded with respect to the suborbital sinus in the Indian antelope; and I quit the subject, for the present, with the remark that they seem to me to justify the observation with which I commenced. More numerous facts, and more full consideration of them, will determine before long the degree of value that should be attached to this view of the subject.

By a letter which I have just received from Mr. Hodgson, I find that he has had his attention excited by the observation of the antelopes which he has kept alive in Nepal; and that he also has been led to the conclusion that there exists a relation between these sinuses and their secretions and the other functions referred to. His continued observation, favourably as he is circumstanced for the acquisition of information on all subjects of Nepalese zoology, will doubtless tend to elucidate this yet unsettled point, on which Dr. Jacob, at the meeting of the British Association in Dublin, in 1835, laid before the members assembled some valuable observations.-E. T. B.]

Τετράδυμοι ῥινες, πισυρες πνοιησι διαυλοι.” "Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." OPP. CYN. lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary :-" Αλκμαιων γαρ ουκ αληθη λεγει, Φαμενος αναπνείν τας αιγας κατα τα ωτα.” "Alcmæon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears." History of Animals, Book I. chap. xi.

2

LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR,

SELBORNE, March 30, 1768. SOME intelligent country people have a notion that we have in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little

2 There is more reason in the supposition that the ears communicate with the nose, than that the suborbital sinus has any such communication; since in all animals that have a tympanic cavity opening upon the surface by an external passage, there is also another conduit leading inwards from the tympanum to the nose: this latter passage is termed the Eustachian tube, and its office appears to be two-fold. First, it prevents the membrana tympani or ear-drum, which is stretched across the external meatus, from having its state of tension disturbed by the variation of the pressure of the atmosphere upon its outer surface, by conveying the same atmosphere to the tympanic cavity where it must press with equal force against the inner surface of the ear-drum. Secondly, it serves, like the lachrymal passage of the eye, to convey superfluous moisture to the nose. When the membrane of the tympanum is accidentally ruptured, air may be forced or expired from the mouth through the ear, but the Eustachian passage is too narrow in mammals to admit of inspiration or breathing being performed through the ears alone, even supposing the ear-drum to be destroyed. In the natural condition of the parts the Stagyrite is, a fortiori, correct in stating that goats cannot breathe through their ears.

It is possible that the idea may have originated in the possession by the chamois of post-auditory sinuses; the openings of which behind the base of the ears may have been regarded as orifices for breathing, in the same manner as a similar function was erroneously ascribed to the suborbital sinuses.-R. O.

reddish beast, not much bigger than a field mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made1.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milkwhite rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white2.

A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house this winter: were not these the snow-flake, the Emberiza nivalis of the British Zoology? No doubt they were.

A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage,

'This I believe to be a pretty general error among the country people in other counties also. This imaginary animal, in Suffolk, is called the mouse-hunt, from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the truth of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought to me; all of which I found to be the common weasel. The error I conceive partly to have arisen from this animal, like most others, appearing less than its real size, when running, and attempting to escape, a circumstance well known to the hunters in India, with respect to larger animals, as the tiger, &c.—MITFORD.

The cane is a provincial name for the female of the common weasel, which is usually one-fourth smaller than the male. Young females of the year, frequently seen during harvest, are not much larger than a fullsized field-mouse.-W. Y.

2 White, pied, and cream-coloured varieties of the rook occasionally occur. A gentleman, in the year 1816, had a young rook of a light ashcolour, most beautifully mottled all over with black, and with the quill and tail-feathers elegantly barred. This curiosity he was naturally anxious to keep: but, upon the bird moulting, all its mottled plumage vanished entirely, it became a jet black rook, and in this state was suffered to join his sable tribe as a fit companion in the fields. Hunt's British Birds (Norwich).-W. Y.

White individuals, both as varieties merely and as albinoes, occur in many birds. Instances are familiar in the sparrow, the chaffinch, the magpie, &c. and, a contradiction in terms, white blackbirds are occasionally met with. One such, captured in Northamptonshire, is now living in the Zoological Society's Gardens.—E. T. B.