616 Glowworm. 



wigeon [Mareca Penelope) breeding with a female pintail 

 ( Querque'dula acuta), notwithstanding the fact of females of 

 his own species being kept on the same piece of water. The 

 present Magazine, too, has published instances. In the cur- 

 rent Volume (p. 107.) it is stated that Mr. Reid of Doncaster 

 has a specimen of a duck, deemed a wild hybrid between the 

 pintail duck and the common wild duck (^4 x nas 2?6schas). 

 Selby, by the way, mentions a similar hybrid. In Vol. VII. 

 p. 599., Mr. H. Berry states that during two successive years 

 a throstle and blackbird paired, and reared strongly marked 

 hybrids, in the garden of James Hankin, a nurseryman at 

 Ormskirk, in Lancashire ; a fact well known to himself and 

 many other persons. Even among the Mammalia such volun- 

 tary intermixtures occur. The following, from Brown's Anec- 

 dotes of Quadrupeds, seems a very remarkable one : — " A 

 domestic cat disappeared from a house in Penza. After being 

 absent some time, she returned ; and, within the regular time, 

 produced four young ones, two of which strongly resembled 

 the marten. Their claws were not retractile, as in the cat ; 

 and the snout was elongated, like that of the pine marten. The 

 two others of the same litter more nearly resembled the cat, 

 as they had retractile claws and round heads. All of them 

 had the black feet, tail, and ears of the marten; and they 

 killed birds and small animals, more for the pleasure of de- 

 stroying them, than for food. The proprietor endeavoured 

 to multiply this race, and to prevent their intermixing with 

 the other domestic cats, in which he proved highly successful. 

 In the space of a few years, he reared more than a hundred 

 of these animals, and made a very beautiful article of furriery 

 of their skins. A specimen presented to the Imperial Society 

 of Natural History of Moscow was of the third or fourth 

 generation ; and it retained all the characters of the first. 

 The fur is as beautiful and silky as that of the pine marten." 

 (p. 307.) 



Without making a great deal of research, I think I could 

 adduce several other instances in refutation of Mr. Blyth's 

 too positive assertion. — James H. Fennell. Southwark, Oct, 

 8. 1836. 



Glowworm. (IX. 487.) — The glowworms which are found 

 from the commencement of September until about the com- 

 mencement of May are all larvae. The larvae emit light, 

 and indeed light is emitted by the glowworm in all its stages 

 of egg, larva, pupa, and imago. — Id. 



