Miscellaneous. 77 



To sum up, therefore, we would affirm that Leporides exist un- 

 doubtedly under both forms, with predominance of the hare or of 

 the rabbit ; but as a species, or even a variety, we cannot admit 

 them, since, like all other crosses, they have merely an accidental 

 productiveness. Their utility moreover is but slender, the flesh 

 having neither the whiteness of the rabbit nor the fine flavour of the 

 hare. Pretty much the same thing may be said of hares reared in 

 hutches ; their flesh lacks flavour, and their multiplication is too 

 limited to render them a profitable object of industry. — Bulletin 

 mensuel de la Societe Imperials zool. d' Acclimatation, 2'"^ serie, 

 tome iii. No. 7, July 18(i6. 



Megaceros hibernicus in the Cambridgeshire Fens. 

 By Norman Moore, Esq. 



Early this year some diggings for phosphatic nodules were opened 

 near Upware, a village on the Cam, about twelve miles below Cam- 

 bridge. I have several times visited the workings in company with 

 Mr. J. F. AValker, B.A., F.G.S., Examiner in Natural Science at 

 Sidney Sussex College ; and whilst he was occupied with the Lower- 

 Greensand fossils, I paid more particular attention to the surface 

 soil. Some fragments of roebuck horns and teeth, one horn of a 

 red deer, and various other bones have been the result. One of the 

 roebuck horns is notched on each side, as if to aff"ord a fastening- 

 place for string, and the points are rubbed smooth ; hence one might 

 suppose that the horn was used, centuries ago, as a net-peg. While 

 at Upware, on my last visit to the bed, a few days ago, I heard that 

 a man in the neighbouring village of Wicken had an elephant's bone, 

 which he had dug out of the surface soil while working at the 

 coprolite- diggings in Burwell Fen. I luckily fell in with the man 

 and the bone, which, to my delight, I saw belonged to an Irish elk. 

 It was an almost perfect and well-marked ulna, evidently of a full- 

 grown animal. The man informed me that several bones of like 

 appearance were found with this one. They were sold for a small 

 sum to a bone-dealer ; this was kept as a curiosity because of its 

 curious shape, " hke a pistol." It is of a dark peat-colour. As far 

 as I can judge by a comparison of the relation which the length of 

 the ulna bears to the height of the shoulder from the ground in the 

 Irish elk in the Woodwardian Museum, I suppose that the animal to 

 which this ulna belonged cannot have been less than eighteen hands 

 high. 



St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. 



Note on Assiminea Francesiee. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. «&c. 



In the ' xlnnals and Magazine of Natural History ' for June last, 

 at p. 381, Mr. Blanford makes some observations on the various 

 terminations which have been given to the name of the shell called 

 Assiminea Francesice. I n)ay state that I originally described the 

 shell as above, naming it after my sister, Frances Ince, who made a 



