472 Queries and Answers. 
shade as the mole, inclines me to think that it is hardly possible that it can 
be that animal, or that the common shrew can undergo so great a change 
both in colour and size. I have the three specimens stuffed. Does the 
common shrew grow larger or darker-coloured from age, or any other 
cause? Perhaps some of your numerous and intelligent correspondents 
can throw some light on this subject. — IW. W. Liverpool, May 31. 
1830. 
A Land Tortoise mutilated by Rats. — Sir, Rather a singular occurrence 
took place a short time ago respecting a land tortoise. I have examined all 
the works on natural history that I can meet with in this neighbourhood, 
but can find no satisfactory account of-it. Perhaps you would have the 
goodness to allow an enquiry to be made through the medium of your 
widely circulated Magazine. 
In October last a land tortoise was placed in a convenient corner to 
spend his torpid winter. He was soon attacked by some rats, which eat 
away his eyes, tongue, and all the under part of his throat, together with 
the windpipe. In that same mutilated state it is supposed that he remained 
about three weeks before it was discovered. On examination I could not 
discern that the least decomposition had taken place, neither could I dis- 
cover any symptoms of animation. I then proceeded to open the shell, 
with the view of preserving it fora museum. I found in the lower part of 
pas shell about two table-spoonfuls of gravel, the grains of which varied from 
1, to } in. in diameter ; there was also a quantity of green matter, which 
appeared like masticated grass, mixed with a kind of viscid slime, but all 
was perfectly sweet. After extr acting the inside, and taking the bones and 
flesh from the legs and neck, I applied a large quantity of corrosive sublimate, 
dissolved in spirits of wine, which I had found to be an effective antiseptic 
for all animal substances I had before applied it to; but in this case it 
failed, as a slight putrefaction has taken place. What I want to learn 
are, if there is any better antiseptic than the one I have tried? or if 
there is any peculiar method to preserve a tortoise? and if the sleepy 
tribe are susceptible of sensation whilst in their torpid state? Iam, &c. — 
William Jones. Post-Office, Ludlow, March 28. 1830. 
_ Oviparous Quadrupeds (Amphibia). p. 364. — Ought the newly discovered 
marine animals with paddles to be called quadrupeds ? Ought animals formed 
for only moving in the ocean to be called Amphibia? —L. July 2. 1830. 
An Egg within an Egg.— \ have lately seen a preternaturally large but 
perfect goose’s egg, containing a smaller one within it, the inner one pos- 
sessing its proper calcareous shell. If, as I have learned from books, the 
shell is not added to the ovum until its arrival in the uterus of the bird, 
how could this inner egg acquire its shell? Will some of your readers 
have the goodness to inform me? — Anser. June, 1830. 
The Songs of Birds innate or acquired. — Sir, Looking over your 
Magazine the other day, my attention was arrested by a letter from a Nor- 
folk correspondent on the subject of the notes of birds. The question 
was, “ whether they are innate or acquired.’ Now, really, it appears to 
me that the habits of the cuckoo render the former conclusive. It is well 
known that that bird never gives itself the trouble to build a nest, but deposits 
its egg in that of some other bird ; often, I believe, the hedge-sparrow : con- 
sequently, the note of the sparrow would be more familiar to it than that of 
its real parent; yet I imagine the note of the cuckoo, whatever may be the 
species of its foster parent, is always that of its kind. <A few years ago I 
saw, in a town in Devonshire, a cuckoo in a cage, which had been found half- 
fledged in a field the preceding spring, and transplanted to a house in a 
narrow street in the middle of the town, a situation where he most pro- 
bably never saw or heard one of his own species, yet at the sight of his 
protectress, or when hungry, he would cry cuckoo ! cuckoo! in the natural 
tone; and, what I thought a remarkable circumstance, he would not feed 
