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dering them impervious. The most extraordinary example, however, 
that has come to my notice occurred in a common cat at Barclay’s 
Brewery, and in this instance, as the case is a very practical one, I 
think I may depart from the plan I had laid down of confining my 
notices to deaths in the Society’s collection. The cat in question 
had been for a long time confined in one of the corn-chambers, and 
was unable to procure grass; she gradually became emaciated and 
died nearly a skeleton; after death the stomach was found filled 
with a solid mass, formed of the twigs of birch-brooms. Mr. Braby, 
the intelligent veterinary surgeon of the establishment, gave me a 
half-section of this mass; it is now in the Museum of the College 
of Surgeons. I mention the case especially for the purpose of show- 
ing the importance of supplying carnivorous animals with grass. A 
most remarkable form of disease occurred in 1854 among some of the 
cats (lions, tigers, and jaguars), arising, I believe, from their having 
eaten glandered horsefiesh. The animals had most of the symptoms 
of this fearful disease, which is so often transmitted to man ; rabbits 
and cats that I inoculated from the nasal purulent matter of a jaguar 
died in a few days. A short time before this, as related to me by 
Mr. Bartlett, two gentlemen dissected at the Gardens a lion that was 
probably affected with the same disease: one died, and the other was 
nearly two years before he recovered from the effects of the poison. 
A remarkable instance of attachment occurred in the Cape hunting- 
dog (Lycaon pictus), as I have stated in the ‘ Proceedings ’ for 1855 ; 
after the death of the dog, the bitch pined away, refused her food, 
and died in ten days. Many of the carnivorous animals were exces- 
sively fat, especially the bears. In a Persian lynx the quantity of 
fat in the pelvis and abdomen was very great, and I have seen similar 
accumulations in many of the Felide. Some writers on fatty dege- 
neration in man have stated that the deposit of fat in wild animals 
is seldom or never met with ; but this is an error; in many of our Bri- 
tish wild animals it is very abundant. The body of the Barn-owl 
(Strix flammea) now on the table contains a large quantity of fat, 
a thick layer of which also existed under the skin; indeed I have 
never seen the same amount in a graminivorous bird. Lieutenant 
Burgess, some of whose papers are in our ‘ Proceedings,’ informs 
me that many birds which he shot in India were exceedingly fat. 
The chief diseases of the Carnivora may be arranged under two 
heads, viz. the inflammatory and the tuberculous, the latter (as I 
believe) being generally the effect of the former. One bear (Ursus 
americanus) died suddenly in a fit, and it is said that in these ani- 
mals sudden death is not unfrequent. In one instance I found the 
lung of a tiger emphysematous, the ruptured air-cells forming eleva- 
tions as large as walnuts. 
Amphibia.—In three seals (P. vitulina) and in a walrus (7. ros- 
marus) the cause of death was not evident; the last-named animal 
had been fed by the Scotch captain who brought it to this country 
upon oatmeal ! 
‘ Marsupiata,—The marsupial animals examined number about 
thirty ; many of them were very fat ; tubercles of the liver are com- 
