78 Miscellaneous, 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE WATER RAIL (RuIluS ttqUatlCUS). 



The bird had selected for her nest a thick turf of long grass, hollow 

 at the bottom, on the side of the reed pond ; the nest, about an inch 

 and half thick, was composed of withered leaves and rushes ; it was so 

 covered by the top of the grass, that neither bird, nest, or eggs could 

 be seen ; the entrance to and from the nest was through an aperture 

 of the grass, directly into the reeds, opposite where any one could 

 stand to see the nest. The length of the eggs on an average were 

 one inch and a half, some near a tenth more, others near a tenth 

 less ; weight, seven drachms ; colour, light cream, thickly spotted 

 at the larger ends with bright rusty red, intermixed with sunk 

 faint lilac spots, thinly and finely spotted at the lesser ends with 

 the same colours, with a blush of pink over the whole e^^, but 

 more towards the lesser ends ; the yolk a bright blood red, brighter 

 than any e^^ I ever opened, and I think that the pink tint of the 

 shell is owing to the redness of the yolk, for after emptying the eggs 

 it was hardly perceptible. On the 20th of June I found another 

 nest in the same reed pond ; the eggs were destroyed ; this nest was 

 built among the reeds, and very near the water. On the 10th of 

 July I obtained a third nest, from the same place, of eleven eggs 

 within two or three days of hatching, the nest and situation much 

 like the first. — John Smith, Yarmouth. 



WALKING OF THE SEAL. 



The common seal in the Zoological Gardens, when on the land, 

 scarcely uses its feet in walking, but only the abdominal muscles, 

 jerking itself forward by a series of convulsive actions. It only used 

 its fore-feet to assist in balancing itself, and when it turned on one 

 side it expanded its hinder feet, which are generally contracted and 

 held together, with the depressed forked tail between their base. 

 This does not arise from any imperfection in the formation of the 

 fore-feet, for it used them as hands to bring bodies near to its mouth. 

 —J. E. Gray. 



HYDR-E. 



A. J. Corda, in the Nov. Act. Ph. Med. xviii. 299. t. 14—16, has 

 given a very complete anatomy of the brown fresh-water polypus 

 {Hydra fusca), showing that the animal is of a much more complex 

 organization than was previously supposed, and that the digestive 

 cavity is furnished with a short straight canal, ending with a distinct 

 vent in the hinder part of the body near the foot or part by which it 

 adheres. — J. E. Gray. 



