142 Short Communications : — 



of their tailless Cats to a Sport of Nature, — Mancuniensis 

 (V. 717.) remarks that the cats without tails, in the Isle 

 of Man, are more like the hare or the rabbit; and this 

 circumstance may account for such an impossibility being 

 stated as the following, which appeared in the British Tra- 

 veller (May, 1823): " There is in the possession of Mr. 

 Henley, at Chatham, a cat, which has littered a kitten and 

 four rabbits ! ! " A writer in the Manx paper, in allusion to 

 the above, remarks: — " We are inclined to believe the four 

 rabbits to be nothing more than kittens of the same descrip- 

 tion as some cats in this island, viz., without tails, and which 

 must originally have been a freak of dame Nature's here, which 

 she is now showing at Chatham." — James Fennell. JLayton- 

 stone, June, 1833. 



P. S. In the possession of the friend in whose house I am 

 at present writing is a female cat, which, I am informed, on 

 one occasion bit off the tips of the ears of her kittens just after 

 they were born. Is not this a modified instance of that 

 perversion of the natural affection (storge) which sometimes 

 induces animals to devour their own young? — Id. 



Unusual Lengthening in the Cutting Teeth of the Rodent 

 Animals. — In II. 134., III. 27., VI. 21. 24., instances of this 

 effect, produced in the rabbit, and, in VI. 390. 393., in the rat, 

 are given. I add a notice of an instance which I have known to 

 obtain in the flying squirrel. Some time after the appearance 

 of the number of this Magazine for May, 1829, in which was 

 given the first of the above notices, I was requested by a lady 

 in this neighbourhood to examine a flying squirrel, a general 

 favourite with her family. I found the upper incisors very 

 much elongated, and inclined under the lower jaw ; rendering 

 it out of the little animaFs power to take his usual food, as 

 there was no possibility of the opposition of the extremities 

 of the upper and lower incisors. I considered that the disease 

 might be remedied, by removing such a portion of the upper 

 incisors as would allow them to come properly in contact with 

 those of the lower jaw. This I easily effected, by means of a 

 pair of forceps. I have frequently seen the little animal 

 since, and have had the satisfaction of observing him busily at 

 work on his nuts, and of learning from his mistress that he 

 has since that time taken his food as before the disease had 

 occurred. — John Reynolds Roxsoe, Wimhorne, Dorset^ Jan. 1. 

 1834. 



Among the numerous individuals of the common squirrel 

 ((Sciurus vulgaris L.) which occur in British woods, is one 

 with a discoloured coat often seen? On January 10. 1834, 1 

 learned that one with a party-coloured coat had, at some time 



