Natural History, 8?c. 193 



than the whole brain ; and it has been ascertained, by direct expe- 

 riments, that where very putrid carrion was inclosed in a basket 

 from which effluvia could freely emanate, but which concealed the 

 offal from sight, it attracted no attention from vultures and other 

 birds of prey till it was exposed to their view, when they immediately 

 recognised their object, and others came rapidly from different quar- 

 ters of the horizon where they were invisible a few minutes before. 

 This sudden appearance of birds of prey from immense distances 

 and in every direction, however the wind may blow, is accounted for 

 by their soaring to an altitude. In this situation their prey on the 

 ground is seen by them, however minute it may be ; arid therefore 

 their appearance in our sight is merely their descent from high 

 regions of the atmosphere to within the scope of our optics. The 

 toucan in India generally arrives a little in the rear of the vulture, 

 and remains till the larger bird is glutted ; while smaller birds of 

 prey, at a still more retired distance, pay similar homage to the 

 toucan*. 



12. NEW SPECIES OF BRITISH SNAKE. 



Mr. T. M. Simmons has discovered, near Dumfries, in Scotland, a 

 species of snake which seems to be new to our naturalists, and which 

 has been appropriately called Coluber natrix: it has no ridged 

 line on the middle of its dorsal scales, which are extremely simple 

 and smooth. The number of scales under the tail is about eighty, 

 and the plates on the belly one hundred and sixty-two. The only 

 specimen hitherto found measured five inches, was of a pale colour, 

 with pairs of reddish-brown stripes from side to side over the back, 

 somewhat zig-zag, with intervening spots on the sides. It comes 

 nearest in character to a species of snake (Coluber austriacus, Linn.) 

 which is common in France and Germany, and which has smooth 

 dorsal scales, like the Dumfries snake. The latter, also, if the 

 figure published by Sowerby be correct, has large scales on the 

 head, which proves that it cannot be the young of the common 

 viper, which, however, had also ridged scales. J. R. f 



13. ON THE EXISTENCE OF ANIMALCULA IN SNOW. 

 (Dr. Mure.) 



The following account was sent by Dr. J. E. Mure in a letter to 

 Dr. Silliman. ' When the winter had made a considerable progress 

 without much frost, there happened a heavy fall of snow. Appre- 

 hending that I might not have an opportunity of filling my house 

 with ice, I threw in snow, perhaps enough to half fill it. There 

 was afterwards severely cold weather, and I filled the remainder 

 with ice. About August the waste and consumption of the ice 

 brought us down to the snow, when it was discovered that a glass 

 of water, which was cooled with it, contained hundreds of animal- 



* Medico-Chirurgical Review. Nat. Mag., ii. 473. 



t Mag. Nat. Hist., ii. 458. 

 VOL. I. OCT. 1830. 'O 



