442 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
Tue Domestication or Drexr.—A very interesting correspondence is 
published in ‘ The American Naturalist’ for June between Mr. Brown, the 
Superintendent of the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, and Mr. J. D. Caton. 
It relates chiefly to the domestication of species of deer. Of the twelve 
species kept in the Philadelphia Gardens the M ule-deer, Cervus macrotis, 
bred during 1878 and 1879; of five fawns one died when two days 
old; the other four, though most carefully nursed and fed with astringent 
food, as well as supplied with iron water and gentian powders, &c., all died 
of a diarrhoea caused by malignant disease. Fiye specimens of Moose-deer 
and eight of Caribou died at periods varying from three months to two 
years and five mouths in the Moose and not beyond nine months in the 
Caribou from hypertrophy of the heart. The Pronghorn, A. americana, all 
died speedily from diarrhoea or hypertrophy of the heart ; change of food and 
tonics seemed to have no effect upon them. Of ten or twelve individuals 
none lived more than fifteen months. The Wapiti and common deer, 
C. virginianus, however, have done well, and several fawns were raised of 
C. campestris, C. aristotelis and C.dama. Of C. leucurus the Gardens 
possessed but a single specimen. In the case of the Mule-deer, Mr. Brown 
is disposed to account for the mortality by the difficulty of supplying them 
with a sufficient amount of their proper (arboreal) food, which has to be 
replaced by dry food and grass. Mr. Caton, writing from Ottawa, Illinois, 
states that he has lost the last of his stock of Mule-deer and also of 
C. columbianus, and that}he is satisfied that they caunot be successfully 
domesticated in his grounds. He concludes that they get at something 
which does not agree with them ; indeed all his experiments with ruminants, 
fere nature whose natural habitat is confined to the United States west of 
the Missouri River, have proved failures. Mr. Caton has succeeded well in 
hybridising the Virginian deer with the Ceylon deer and the Acapulco deer. 
The hybrids seem to be perfectly healthy and prolific, several of the hybrids 
from the Virginian deer and Acapulco buck having borne perfectly healthy 
twin fawns. On some of the hybrids the metatarsal gland is wanting, and 
on some it is present, while some have it on one hind leg and not on the 
other. 
ENFORCED DeEsrRucTION oF Rappits IN NEw ZEALAND.— As an 
instance of the enormous increase of Rabbits in some parts of New Zealand, 
more particularly in one of the up-country districts of Otago Province, 
a recent number of the ‘ Tuapeka Times’ gives the following statistics :— 
On a single day no less than 40,000 skins were brought from Messrs. Strode 
and Fraser's station at Earnscleugh to the railway-station at Clyde, there to 
be despatched to Port Chalmers for shipment to the Londou market. On 
