8186 Notices of New Books. 



at the present day it is incontestible that the tiger {Felis Tigris) — spe- 

 cifically identical with the treacherous inhabitant of the jungles of 

 Bengal — not only crosses the snows of the Himalayah Mountains, 

 as, in truth, has long been known, but even extends its range through- 

 out China, to that district — the valley of the river Amoor — by which 

 the boundaries of the Russian Empire have recently been ' rectified.' 

 The labours of Von MiddendorfF, Von Schrenck and others, have 

 shown that it is an ordinary resident at all seasons of the year, and 

 frequently destructive to men and cattle, about the mouth of the river 

 Ussuri, in north latitude 48° (nearly that of Vienna) ; and also that it 

 even passes over the ice in latitude 52" (almost as far north as our 

 present place of meeting), to devastate the island of Saghalien, where, 

 according to Keith Johnstone's ' Physical Atlas,' the mean tempera- 

 ture is that of Iceland, while the winters are as severe as those of 

 St. Petersburg. I therefore do not question that the legends of 

 ancient Greece may have had a strictly local origin, when they assert 

 that the first settlers in Argolis met with lions there. The early 

 trophy of Hercules — the hide of the Nemaean monster — seems to me 

 far less mythical than most of that hero's attributes. Again, too, 

 I need scarcely remind my audience of the numerous allusions to this 

 animal which are to be found in Homer, nor of the statement of He- 

 rodotus respecting the existence of lions in Thrace, and the ravages 

 they committed there on the camels of Xerxes. I hope I shall not 

 be supposed to affect a classical knowledge I can only admire in 

 others, but, speaking merely as a zoologist, I see no objection to the 

 story." 



The essay, however, is not generally of this apocryphal character. 

 As a novelty in science, however, or at any rate a recent and most 

 interesting discovery, the occurrence of bones of the water tortoise in 

 Norfolk may be cited : they were found at a place called West Mere, 

 a few miles from Thetford, and consequently very near to Mr. Newton's 

 residence, and belonging to Mr. Birch, of Wretham Hall : — 



" In this mere there was ordinarily about four feet of water, and 

 beneath it about eight feet of soft black mud, partly held in suspen- 

 sion and requiring to be removed in scoops. When the mud was 

 being cleared out a great number of bones were discovered, chiefly 

 deposited, as from its semi-liquid nature might have been expected, 

 at the bottom. They were nearly all those of the red deer {Cervus 

 Elaphus) and the now extinct Bos longifrons ; but among them also 

 was the upper part of a goat's skull, with the horn-cores and the skull 

 of a boar or pig of some sort. Near the centre of the mere, lying below 



