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a 5 
87 
toes on each of the anterior, and four on each of the posterior, feet, a 
rounded head, elastic muscular body, strong limbs, sharp claws, and 
several other external characteristics. They were also gifted with 
acute sight and hearing. 
Mr. A. HILTON thought that he had discovered what was not a 
peculiarity,-the large bushy tail,—stating that some domestic, and, 
on the continent, many hybrid cats, with bushy tails, twice the size of 
the one alluded to by Mr. Scott, were to be found. 
Mr. G. Scotr explained, however, that it was not in the length 
of the tail that the peculiarity lay, but in the short, combined with the . 
bushy state. 
Dr. HALLIFAX said that one of the most distinctive features of 
the wild, as compared with the domestic cat, was the great length of 
the intestinal canal. He also observed that,-according to high 
authorities, the domestic might breed with the wild cat ; and, if so, 
that would rationally explain the large variety of cats. 
Mr. T. W. WonFor admitted that there might be cross-breeds, 
_ and that domestic cats had been known to disappear and return with 
progeny unlike themselves, and more or less wild ; but the question 
then arose—did that cat breed with a male cat, which had become 
wild, or with a truly wild cat ? 
Mr. G. Scorr maintained that the varieties of the domestic cat 
were produced by cross-breeding, the same as with domestic cattle, 
pigeons, &c. ; for the wild cat never did vary, a fact which was con- 
firmatory of his assertion that it was a distinct species. 
A discussion on the monkey followed, in which Messrs. Hilton, 
Shellingford, Wonfor, Wallis, G. D. Sawyer, and Mr. Scott took part. 
Mr. F. E. SAYWER, F.M.S., reminded the members that, with 
reference to a paper which he read in 1872 upon Earthquake Shocks in 
Sussex, Mr. Wonfor mentioned that in the autobiography of Sir John 
Bramston, published by the Camden Society, there was a shock men- 
tioned as having occurred in 1692, but it gave no particulars. He 
found a description of this earthquake in Holloway’s History of Rye, 
which stated that the trembling of the earth under the town did not 
last a minute, and was felt throughout England, France, Belgium, and 
part of Germany, as far as Frankfort. He also corrected a statement 
