190 Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 



Engineer for the Northern Light-houses for October 1828, men- 

 tions, that " all the sea-birds have now (October 20.) left the 

 island, except the scarts, (cormorants, Phalacrocorax Carlo J, 

 which come in numbers to winter there. They roost on the shelves 

 on the west side, and also on the outer rocks of the North Ness. 

 Early in the spring, they all take their departure, except a few 

 which remain over the summer, and hatch in the fcovei- on the 

 west side of the island. Small podleys (fry of coalfish, Merlan- 

 gus carbonarius) are, at this season, in great numbers all around 

 the island, close by the rock-foot. These podleys are now about 

 three inches in length." Till nearly the end of the month, 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer was daily about 50°. When the tem- 

 perature fell lower than this, the mercury in the barometer rose 

 very high ; from the 27th to the 29th it ranged from 30° 29' to 

 30° 44' ; wind southerly. The weather was dry, the rain-gauge 

 only giving 0.79 for the month. 



13. Changes iii Animals. — At one of the recent sittings of the 

 Academy of Sciences at Paris, an interesting paper was read by 

 M. Roulin, on the changes which the domestic animals of 

 Europe undergo when transported to the equatorial regions of 

 the New World. The author's observations are stated to have 

 been made in New Grenada, and a part of Venezuela, from the 

 3d to the 10th degree of N. Lat. and from the 70th to the 80th 

 degree of W. Long. He states, at the commencement of his 

 paper, that the mammiferous animals brought from the Old to 

 the New Continent, are pigs, sheep, goats, asses, horses, cows and 

 dogs, all of which are become more numerous than the indigenous 

 animals of the new countries. It appears that the hog, in the warm 

 valleys of South America, wandering in the woods, and subsist- 

 ing upon wild fruits, becomes very ferocious, and assumes al- 

 most the character of the wild boar. The first introduction of 

 pigs into these climates, was in St Domingo, in 1493, one year 

 after the discovery of America. They were successively intro- 

 duced into all the places inhabited by Spaniards; and, in the 

 space of half a century, they were to be found multiplying rapidly, 

 from the 25th degree of N. Lat. to the 45th degree of S. Lat. The 

 larger animals were also first introduced into St Domingo, where, 

 for some years, they did not appear to thrive ; but, by the per- 

 severing management of the colonists, they began to multiply 



