Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 181 



W. Mr Marshall on a Heifer zvliich yielded Milk. — Edring- 

 ton, by Berzvick', June 16. 1830. — Sir, As I believe the following 

 fact, which I shall have the honour of narrating to you, to be a 

 very uncommon one, I have from that consideration been induced 

 to trouble you with its communication. I have two two-years-, 

 old heifers, one of which has been observed for several months to 

 suck the other, and evidently to draw a certain portion of milk. 

 This circumstance rendering it necessary to separate them, cu- 

 riosity suggested the trial whether the heifer which had played 

 nurse would yield milk to the hand. On the experiment being 

 made, she gave a full English quart of genuine milk ; and on the 

 milk being kept for thirty hours, it was covered with a coat of 

 very good cream. The cream being churned in a bottle, afforded 

 as much, and as good, butter, as the same quantity of any other 

 cream would have done, under similar management. The singu- 

 lar part of the story is, that the heifer in question has never seen 

 the bull. I am aware that a bitch kept up from the dog will, at 

 the time she should have produced puppies, have milk in her 

 dugs, but I do not know of any other female that secretes milk 

 without being impregnated. I have the honour to be, &c. 

 Jos. Marshall. To Professor Jameson. 



12. Frog and Insect Plague of Midlye — As a further il- 

 lustration of the nature of the atmosphere and climate in ge- 

 neral, I shall add the following observations, which may be 

 of some use in a medical point of view. During the rains, 

 the vast abundance of cold-blooded animals is really astonish- 

 ing. Of these, frogs are the most numerous. No place is 

 free from this plague ; every hole and every corner, both of 

 the most retired and most pubhc rooms, are equally infested. 

 If a table, a chest of drawers, or a box be moved, or a carpet 

 be lifted, they are found nestled underneath by fifteen or twenty 

 in each corner; and thus through our halls, our bed-rooms, and 

 our sitting rooms. There they remain during the day; and 

 towards sunset, they begin to issue from their ambuscades, and 

 traverse the whole house in quest of prey. The following anec- 

 dotes may give some idea of the number of insects. One morn- 

 ing at sunrise, I was awakened by a loud humming in my bed- 

 room, resembling that of a market or fair held at a distance. 

 On examination, my window was darkened, and my bed covered 



