Sucklers. 9431 



disappeared again. Once more I heard the plaintive cry, and, now suspecting where it 

 came from, I crept near enough the spot to see the weasel seize upon a goodly-sized 

 frog, with which it scampered off My walking-slick, rapidly thrown after the fugi- 

 tive, compelled it to relinquish its burthen, and enabled me to ascertain that, beyond 

 a few teeth-marks in one side, poor froggy was not much the worse for the encounter. 

 Do frogs form a part of this animal's food ? — Heart/ Moses ; Russell Street, Reading. 



Bats carri/ing off Hen's Eggs. — The rector of a parish in Westmoreland assured 

 me he had witnessed this feat. Having lost many eggs belonging to a laying hen, he 

 was induced to watch to discover the thief One morning, soon after the cackling 

 bird had given warning that she had deposited an egg, he observed two rats come out 

 of a hole in the hen-house and proceed direct to the nest. One of the rats then laid 

 down upon its side, whilst the other rat rolled the fresh tgg so near it that it could 

 embrace it with its feet. Having now obtained a secure hold of the egg, its com- 

 panion dragged it into the hole by its tail, and disappeared. We may ask how the 

 rats got at the contents of the egg ? — Id. 



Does the Ship Rat drink Salt Water P — This question I once put to the skipper 

 of a merchant ship I sailed in as a passenger to India. His own impression was that 

 they did. I still doubt it. Once again, alluding to this subject, a relative told me that 

 he had been informed by a tide-waiter, whose duty it was to sit frequently in a little 

 hut on the George's pier-head, Liverpool, and there await the arrival of vessels, that 

 while at his post, very early one summer morning, he heard a strange paltering noise 

 outside the hut, and, peeping through a window, he saw what he described as a 

 mighty army of rats marching past in regular order. Curious to ascertain what they 

 were about, he ventured out from his retreat, and watched them descend the slip 

 leading direct to the River Mersey, where they quenched their thirst, after which they 

 returned in the same regular order, and soon dispersed among the warehouses in the 

 neighbourhood. This anecdote was told in proof that rats would drink salt water when 

 pressed by urgent thirst ; but the relator forgot that river water is specifically lighter 

 than salt water, and if the tide was low at the time, which, if I remember correctly, it 

 was, the probability is that, after all, the rats quenched their thirst on fresh water, and 

 also knew at what hour to procure it. — Id. 



Black Specimen of the Common Squirrel. — On the 18th of last October, while 

 shooting near Watford, I distinctly saw a black squirrel, but, not knowing they were 

 not often seen in England, I did not shoot it. I have frequently seen, near here, 

 squirrels v/iih fur as dark as that of the sable on their tails, and their whole body very 

 dark.— .'V/. R. Pryor ; High Elms, Watford, December 17, 1864, 



Eggs of Ornithorhynchus.— About ten months ago a platypus {Ornithorhynchus 

 paradoxus) was captured, and is in possession of Mr. Rumley, gold-receiver, Wood's- 

 point. It has laid two eggs, which were white, soft and without shell. It is to he 

 regretted that no opportunity was afiforded of examining them more minutely, as they 

 were soon afterwards thrown away. It has hitherto been a matter of dispute among 

 naturalists as to whether this extraordinary animal, the connecting-link between birds 

 and mammals, produced living young, or whether it laid eggs. It may now, however, 

 be considered as a settled question.— From the ' Illustrated Melbourne Post' of Sep- 

 tember 24, 1864. [Valeat quantum l—£. iV.] 



Capture of a Wild Cat in Devon. — A specimen of the now rare Felis catus was 

 taken in a vermin-trap at Moreton, on the 12th 'of December. It is a male, and 

 measures about thirty inches in length ; the fore legs are ten inches long ; the tail, as 



