178 



PART III. 



COLLECTANEA. 



Art. L The General Subject. 



Technicalities of Science. — It is time that we should get rid of that 

 puerility, which would persuade us that a fact, described in terms and language 

 familiar only to the learned, bficomes of less importance when displayed in 

 the energetical simplicity of our mother-tongue. It is time that such puerility 

 should be placed upon the shelf, or hurried to the tomb of all the Capulets. 

 If, however for the sake of foreigners, such a course should at any time be 

 deemed expedient, it is hoped, that in this journal, at any rate, an English 

 translation will accompany the Latin description, so that it may escape the 

 complaints frequently made, and with much truth, against many of the 

 works on natural history, which have been published in this country and 

 elsewhere, and which appear as if designed rather to display the learning 

 of the writers, than to state the facts which such learning ought to convey. 

 Such, however, it is admitted, is the effect of habit, or the pride of science, 

 or both combined, that it is very often difficult for those accustomed to 

 scientific language and terms, to condescend to the use of such as shall 

 make what they write at once agreeable to, and understood by, the gener-al 

 reader. Through inattention to these circumstances, the study of natural 

 history has not obtained that attention in this country to which it is enti- 

 tled and deserves ; and I may venture to predict, that while the pride of 

 science shall refuse to condescend to familiar explanation, the number of 

 students in natural history will not very materially increase. However, it 

 is to be hoped that the prospects of natural history are extending, and that 

 the establishment of the Zoological Society in particular will excite the 

 public attention ; that the study of nature will be more simplified, and be 

 made more attractive and more amusing. The publication of the Maga- 

 zine of Natural History will, it is also hoped, be instrumental in this work, 

 by reducing the science to the level of ordinary capacities, and by smooth- 

 ing the road to more recondite views. — James Jennings. London, June 6. 

 1828. 



Art. II. Zoology. 



White Cats unth blue eyes always deaf. — Sir, The brief notice at p. 6Q. 

 of your interesting Magazine of Natural History, that " v.'hite cats with 

 blue eyes are always deaf," induces me to forward to you the following con- 

 firmation of that extraordinary fact, which has come within my own know- 

 ledge. Some years ago a white cat of the Persian kind (probably not a 

 thoroughbred one), procured from Lord Dudley's at Hindley, was kept in 

 my family as a favourite. The animal was a female, quite white, and per- 

 fectly deaf She produced, at various times, many litters of kittens, of 

 which, generally, some were quite white, others more or less mottled, 

 tabby, &c. But the extraordinary circumstance is, that of the offspring 

 produced at one and the same birth, such as, like the mother, were entirely 



