NATURAL HISTORY — ZOOLOGY. 217 



we hear that many of its members have placed their parks and 

 waters at the service of the managing committee. This is well ; but 

 at the same time it will be better if they succeed in introducing one 

 really valuable species, and spreading it over the length and breadth 

 of the land, rather than waste and fritter away their means over a 

 number of minor efforts. To bring Eland meat to the price of prime 

 beef would be a greater achievement than the introduction of fifty 

 new species of game. At the same time also, we hope that they 

 will not continue to overlook the very great claims of the botanical 

 kingdom. 



THE ACCLIMATIZATION OF THE ALPACA AND LAMA 



Is proceeding vigorously in France. M. Isidore Gr. St. Hilaire 

 has reported to the French Academy of Sciences the recent arrival of 

 thirty-three alpacas, nine lamas, and one Peruvian sheep ; the sole 

 remains of a collection of 100 head brought from Peru and Bolivia 

 by M. Roehn. The mortality was occasioned by the long and 

 perilous journey by land and sea. M. St. Hilaire said that in less 

 able hands the whole would most probably have perished. In 1765 

 Buffon recommended the enriching the Alps and Pyrenees with the 

 lama and its congeners, saying, " I think that these animals would 

 be an excellent acquisition for Europe, and would produce more 

 real benefit than all the metal of the New World." In relation 

 to this, M. St. Hilaire refers to the increasing numbers of these 

 animals in France, England, Spain, Cuba, and Australia. 



CHANGES IN EGGS. 



Dr. John Davy, in a paper " On the Albumen of the Newly-laid 

 Egg," says : — "The albumen of the egg of the common fowl, newly 

 laid, has properties differing in some particulars from those of the 

 albumen of the stale egg. One of these, and that which is best 

 known, is the milkiness which it exhibits when dressed for the table, 

 provided the egg be not put into water of too high a temperature, 

 and kept there unduly long. Another is seen in the manner of 

 coagulating." 



Dr. Davy then details experiments at various temperatures, and 

 adds: — " These results seem to show that the white of the newly- 

 laid egg is more readily affected by heat of a certain temperature 

 than that of an egg exposed some time to the air, as indicated by the 

 appearance of milkiness it exhibits, and yet that, within a certain 

 range of temperature, the amount of coagulation or the degree of 

 firmness is less. 



"That the difference of qualities which I have described is owing 

 to exposure to, and the action of, atmospheric air, can hardly be 

 doubted.* The proofs seem to be sufficiently clear. The newly- laid 



* May Dot the disappearance of the eurd which is seen in the salmon when 

 dressed fresh from the sea, the clean fish of the angler, be owing to the same 

 cause — viz., the absorption of oxygen on being kept exposed to the air, and the 

 liquefaction of the curdy matter, a consequence of that absorption — a liquefac- 

 tion similar to that which the fibrin of the blood undergoes from the action of 

 oxygen ? 



