Dec., 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



293 



Sheep's Wool and Birds* Legs. 



At the first meelins of the winter session of the Ornitholo- 

 gists' Club, Mr. Ticehnrst cxhiliited a series of legs of the 

 lapwing taken from birds shot on Koniney Marsh during 

 August last. These were very remarkable, inasmuch as they 

 showed various stages of necrosis of the lower part of the leg, 

 caused by the sheep's wool having become wound round the 

 part atTected. 



In one of these legs the wool had been successfully removed 

 by the bird and only a scar was left. In anotherthe wool had 

 so tightly encircled the toes that a partial necrosis of one 

 member had taken place. In a fourth specimen this ligament 

 had wound itself around tarso-met.itarsus just above the toes, 

 and in consequence these had all been lost. 



A yellow wagtail with feet similarly affected was also shown. 

 It is worthy of note that we have no records of starlings being 

 affected in this way. 



* » * 



Spotted Crake in Antrim. 



A Spotted Crake, records the Fiiht. October 22, was shot 

 near Tempiepatrick, Co. Antrim, on t)ctobcr 8. This makes 

 the sixth occurrence of this bird in .Antrim. 



* * * 



Solitary Sandpiper at Rye. 



Mr. C. B. Ticehnrst exhibited at the t)ctober meeting of the 

 Ornithologists' Club a Solitary Sandpi])er {Tdtiiitus solitciniis) 

 shot at Rye Harbour, Susse.x, on .August 7. This is the fourth 

 British example of this .American species. 



* » » 



Ta-wny Pipit at Rye. 



At the meeting of the Ornithologists' Club just referred to 

 Mr. C. B. Nicoll reported that three specimens of the Tawny 

 Pipit {Anthiis campesliis) had been taken at Kye Harbour 

 during August last. He himself shot an immature bird of this 

 species on the sea-banks of Sussex near Bexhill. From the 

 numerous occurrences of these birds he expressed his opinion 

 that the Tawny I'ipit was a regular autumn visitor on 

 migration. 



* * » 



Lapland Bunting near Pevensey. 



Mr. C. B. Nicoll also reported that he had procured an 

 immature example of the Lapland Bunting (Calccuiiis lap- 

 poiiicus) near Pevensey on September 28. 



* * * 



Broad-Billed Sandpiper at Rye. 



Now that closer attention is being paid to birds on migration 

 in the neighbourhood of Rye a number of rarities are being 

 discovered. Mr. Nicoll, in addition to the records just de- 

 scribed, also reported the occurrence of an immature Broad- 

 Billed Sandpiper (Limicola platyrhynclia), which had been shot 

 at Rye, Sussex. This is the fifth record of the occurrence of 

 this bird in Sussex. 



ZOOLOGICAL. 



By R LVUEKKER. 



Quaggas and Wild Asses. 



The present year has been noteworthy from the amount of 

 literature devoted to the members of the horse tribe, or 

 Equida. One of the latest contributions to the subject is an 

 article by Mr. K. T. Pocock, the Superintendent of the London 

 Zoological Gardens, on South African quaggas, published in 

 the November number of the Ainials ami Miif;a;:iiu- 1/ Natural 

 History. According to the author, we have to deplore the 

 extermination not of one, but of several distinct forms of these 

 animals ; the quaggas of the older writers, of which two races 

 are recognised, being distinct from those exhibited forty years 

 ago in the Regent's Park and other menageries. Without for 

 a moment saying that the author may not be right in his view, 

 it certainly does seem strange that the whole of the quagga- 



sk'ns which h.i\e come down to us slumKl dillcr lioui the 

 animals described by the older zooloj^ists. The Asiatic and 

 .\frican wild asses form the sul>jcct of a paper by the present 

 writer published in a recent issue of Novilalcs /ootof^icic, the 

 organ of Mr. Walter Rothschild's zoological museum at Tring ; 

 an apparently new race of the " onager " from Central Asia, 

 now living in the Duke of Bedford's park at Woburn, being 

 described and figured. The description of one of the two 

 races of the African wild ass is based on sp<>cimcns killed in 

 the Lastern Sudan by Mr. N. C. Rothschild, one of which is 

 now mounted in the British (Natural History) Musetnn, while 

 there is a second in the Edinburgh Museum, and a third in 

 Mr. Rothschild's own collection. .As the construction of the 

 Suakin-Berber railway is only too likely to lead to the exter- 

 mination of this race, these specimens are very precious. 

 ■<■ :<- «■ 



The Ancestry of the Horse. 



In connection with articles on this subject, which have 



.ippcared during the year in '• Knowi.kdgi; " our readers maybe 



referred to one by Professor H. F. Osborn on the evolution of 



the horse in America, published in the November number of 



the Century Magazim-. The author is of opinion that the 



modern type of horse (that is to say, the genus Equus) was 



evolved in North America, whence it migrated by way of 



Bering Strait into .Asia, and so into fuirope and Africa. He 



is also inclined to look favourably on the theory that the 



blood-horse has a dilTerent ancestry to the ordinary breeds of 



ICuropc. 



•x- * * 



A White Racoon Dog. 



I"or nianv years naturalists h.ivc bnii laniiliar with a 

 remarkable Japanese and Chinese animal which, although 

 externally somewhat like an American racoon, yet is really 

 an aberrant member of the dog-tribe. Those who attach im- 

 portance to external characters, rank the creature as the re- 

 presentative of a genus by itself, under the names of Nyctcr- 

 i-uttH pnicyanoiiUs ; while those who consider that geneiic dis- 

 tinctionsshould rest on important structural differences class 

 it with the more typical dogs, as ('aiiisprmynuinchs. TIh; New 

 "i'ork Zoological I'.uk possesses at the present time a pure 

 white racoon-dog, stated to have been brought from Northern 

 Jajian, which is regarded as representing a second species, for 

 which the name NyctiTc-utvs atbus has been proposed. 

 ■A- -X- :(- 



A New Snake-Salairvander. 



The description (in the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History for October) of a new species of those strange worm- 

 like Inirrowiug amphibians generally known as eiecilians, but 

 which may be better designated in popular zoology as snake- 

 salamanders, would scarcely seem at first a subject for notice 

 in this column; but, as a matter of fact, this particular case 

 has a very wide and important interest. The species in 

 question, which comes from the Kachar district of Assam, is 

 described by Major Alcock under the name of Htiptif fulhri ; 

 and it is in regard to the peculiar geographical distribution of 

 the genus that the interest of the new discovery lies. With 

 the addition of the new species, the genus Hcrpek is repre- 

 sented in India, Pan;una, and West Africa ; and, as Major 

 Alcock remarks, such a distriliution, in the case of a worm- 

 like burrowing group appears altogether inexplicable on the 

 theory that continents and ocean-basins are permanent, or, in- 

 d('ed,'anything like permanent. On the otherhand, the distri- 

 bution of Hcrpek, together with that of certain sub-littoral 

 hermit-crabs, which is curiously similar, affords strong sup- 

 port to the now generally accepted view that India and Africa 

 were connected by land at a comparatively recent epoch of 

 the earth's history (th.at is to say, within the lifetime of an 

 existing highly specialised genus). The two instancesalsoadd 

 one more link to the chain of zoological evidence which ap- 

 parently points to a former land connection between Africa 

 and South America across the Atlantic. The Indo-African 

 connection, which is supported by geological as well as by 

 zoological evidence, would explain the presence of ccecilians in 

 the Seychtllis as well as the absence of the above-mentioned 

 littoral hermit-crabs from the cast coast of Africa. The alter- 

 native view to the trans-Atlantic connection between West 

 Africa and America (apart from one by way of the Pacific) 



