478 



notes appears best worthy of extract : " We arrived towards evening, 

 at the side of a range of hills, called ' Zuureberg.' * * The 

 name indicates the acid or sour quality of its pasturage, and was given 

 by the farmers. It is a curious fact, that the sourness of a pasture is 

 always indicated by the cattle chewing bones, which they never do 

 when the grasses are quite sweet ; they know by instinct, what remedy 

 to take for neutralizing the acidity in their stomachs. It was very in- 

 teresting sometimes, to see our oxen chasing each other to get hold 

 of a bone out of the mouth of another. The farmers believe, from ig- 

 norance of the true state of things, that the cattle use these bones to 

 sharpen their teeth, and generally affirm that the teeth of cattle be- 

 come sensible and painful from the sour nature of their food, while 

 the fact is, they chew and swallow the bones as a cure for the internal 

 acidity, which would not be a remedy against the painful sensation 

 of the teeth." 

 The writer does not mention any of the sour plants which are thus 

 supposed to make the oxen of Africa emulate the paupers of Andover 

 by becoming " gnawers of bones." How is it with the English cattle 

 when turned into pasturage abounding with Rumex Acetosa or ace- 

 tosella ? 



Mr. Spruce intimates that he has been highly successful in collect- 

 ing mosses, notwithstanding the unfavourable reports about the Pyre- 

 nean mosses given by other botanists. His letter bears the date of 

 January 6th, and it would seem that he designs to prolong his sojourn 

 in the Pyrenees to another season. 



C 



Notice of the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History^ Nos. 101 

 to in, July, 1845, to March, 1846. 



(Continued from page 224 of this Volume). 



The ' Phytologist ' has long been in arrears with its notices of the 

 botanical papers in the ' Annals,' through necessarily giving priority to 

 those contributions on British Botany which have been sent to us in 

 the form of original articles. The papers in the ' Annals ' may be 

 thrown into two principle categories, — first, the original articles, re- 

 lating chiefly to British plants — secondly, the articles translated from 

 foreign publications, many of which are valuable contributions to 

 physiological or geographical Botany. 



