378 Miscellaneous. 



much longer compared with the size of the body and comparatively 

 slenderer. 



The kittens of the greater number of variegated feline animals 

 are spotted or striped like the adult ; but the very young kittens of 

 the hunting leopard {Gueparda r/}(tt(Ua) and of the jaguar {Lenpar- 

 dus onca) arc brown and not spotted ; and the young pumas, while 

 their mothers are of a uniform dark brown colour, are pale whitish 

 brown, with large, dark, roundish, regularly disposed blotches, the 

 blotches being more distinct in the younger specimens and gradually 

 becoming more indistinct as the animal grows. 



Dr. Baird describes a pair of kittens from Fort Steilacoom which 

 he thought "probably belonged to this species" (Mam. North 

 America, p. 84), which well agree with the young we have in the 

 British Museum, born at the Zoological Gardens, and figured by Mr. 

 Bartlett (P.Z. S. 18G1, pi. 22) from a drawing by Wolff. The 

 adult lion is of a uniform colour ; but the young kitten of a Barbary 

 lion in the British Museum, which was littered in the Zoological 

 Gardens in 1853, is of a nearly uniform whity brown colour, but 

 has some very indistinct darker spots on the outside of its hind legs 

 and tail. 



The tails of the kittens of several cats, as the lion and the common 

 domestic cat, appear to be shorter compared with the body than in 

 the adult, which is probably universal in all the species of cats. 



A Scarlet Ear Shell, probably Artificial. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gkay, F.R.S. &c. 



Many years ago I purchased of Mr. George Sowerby, the elder, a 

 very beautiful specimen that he had purchased of a Frenchman, who 

 informed him that it had been described and figured as a new genus 

 of shells, I forget by whom ; and I have never been able to discover 

 where it was published, if it ever was. It has the appearance of a 

 very irregular, corrugated, suborbicular, ear shell, with an irregu- 

 lar outer lip. It is of a bright scarlet colour, and is without the 

 usual series of holes over the gills of the animal, in this respect 

 resembling Stomatia. The shell is of a uniform appearance and 

 colour, and has no external opaque or internal pearly coat, which is 

 found in the ear shells and their allies, and, having been accidentally 

 broken across the fracture, shows a uniform texture very different 

 from an ear shell. 



After examination I determined (and I believe Mr. Sowerby agreed 

 with me) that it was a model of a shell carved out of the expanded 

 part at the base of a red coral. 



I have given the specimen to the British Museum collection ; for 

 if it is a model, it is very interesting and curious, being executed 

 with great elaboration and attention to the minute details by a 

 person who must have had a very intimate knowledge of the forma- 

 tion and growth of shells : though the outer surface is so irregu- 

 larly formed, the irregularities are just such as would occur in a 

 shell which has such an irregiilar outline to the outer lip, and the 



