Dr. Buchanan on the Wound of the Ferret. 377 



by sucking the blood of its victim. The rapidity of the death 

 was quite inconsistent with so tedious a process as blood-sucking, 

 and the dissection showed the true cause to be totally different, 

 and so very curious, that I have thought it not unworthy of the 

 notice of the physiological section of the Society. 



The two rats being put into a large barrel, concealed them- 

 selves under some hay in the bottom of it. On the Ferret being 

 introduced, it seemed dazzled with the sunshine, for it took no 

 notice of one of the rats placed right before it ; but soon finding 

 the scent, it burrowed under the hay, taking the very track which 

 the rat had just taken, and thus came round directly upon him. 

 The rat, which was of large size, resisted stoutly, but the Ferret, 

 instead of returning the bites it received, seemed entirely occu- 

 pied with putting itself into a proper position, applying itself to 

 the body of its antagonist, breast to breast, and using the fore 

 paws and head, as if going to embrace it. No sooner had it as- 

 sumed this position, than it inflicted a wound, which was so in- 

 stantaneously fatal, that a physiologist might have guessed from 

 that circumstance alone, what the nature of the wound must have 

 been. The rat died without a struggle : and the Ferret imme- 

 diately disengaged itself from the body, instead of remaining to 

 suck the blood, and soon falling on the track of the other rat, 

 destroyed it exactly in the same manner. 



I now proceeded to examine the dead animals. Neither of 

 them exhibited any marks of injury inflicted by the Ferret, ex- 

 cept a bloody patch on the side of the neck, under the ear. In 

 the first one which I looked at, there was at the upper part of this 

 bloody patch, or a little below and behind the ear, a very small 

 punctured wound, and on dissecting it carefully to the bottom, I 

 was surprised to find that the sharp dens caninus, by one of 

 which the wound was obviously inflicted, had gone right down 

 to the spinal cord, piercing it between the occiput and the upper- 

 most cervical vertebra. The Ferret therefore destroys its victims 

 by pithing, a process well-known to be the most immediately fatal, 

 to the upper orders of vertebrated animals, of all modes of de- 

 stroying life : and it employs for the purpose one of its long 

 slender dagger-like tusks, a weapon singularly well adapted to 

 inflict a wound which proves fatal, neither by laceration nor con- 

 tusion, but by penetrating into the very centre of the nervous 

 system, on which the most important functions of life imme- 

 diately depend. 



The death of the other rat was obviously produced in the same 

 way ; but there was no external wound visible on any part of the 

 bloody patch on the neck, the tusk having been inserted into the 

 external ear, and then penetrating the cartilaginous side of the 

 auditory passage had been carried towards the vertebral canal, 



Ann. §• Mag. N. Hist. Vol xviii. 2 E 



