4542 THE ZooLocist—JULY, 1875. 
But although the partiality for vegetable food is not a characteristic of any 
sub-order or family, it is of course possible that some one or more varieties 
may be endowed with it. But from what knowledge we already possess, 
and the want of any corroborative statements grounded on personal ob- 
servation from naturalists who have explored the habitat of these very 
snakes, I certainly think we have a good warrant for misdoubting those 
statements which are adduced only on the authority of natives and un- 
qualified persons in general. The nearest approach to the so-called vegetable- 
eating snakes are the one or two varieties of the tree snakes which feed usually 
or occasionally on eggs. But it is in those very ophidians that we find the 
strongest corroboration of their non-vegetable appetites, for many of this 
species have a peculiar conformation of the vertebra of the neck, from which 
spring several spinous projections, the design of which is to break the shell 
of the egg before it undergoes deglutition ; and in this contrivance of Nature 
we can see plainly that berries and other vegetable substances are not 
intended to furnish food for the snakes in question, for then there would be 
no necessity for such an alteration in the structure of the neck vertebrae as 
we have just seen there is.— IV. Sharp ; Glasgow. 
Ray’s Bream at Penzance.— Ray's bream has again been taken here. 
A full-sized specimen was this morning found alive, but exhausted, 
floundering in shallow water off our Western Beach, in the town here. 
In its stomach was a cuttle-fish about four inches long. It may be noted 
that the fish was found on the abatement of a heavy gale of wind from 
W.S.W.—Thomas Cornish ; Penzance, June 12, 1875. 
Zoological Society of London: Additions to the Menagerie during the 
Month of April, 1875.—N.B. The day of the month when the specimen 
was obtained precedes its name; the number of specimens, if more than 
one, also precedes the name. When a species is new to the collection an 
asterisk (*) is affixed to the name; the country of which the species is 
native follows the name; the donor's name follows the name of the country, 
except when the specimen has been purchased; the part of the Gardens 
where the specimen is exhibited follows the donor’s name. 
April, 1875. 
2. Redbellied wallaby (male), Tasmania; presented by Mr. B. G. Corney; 
kangaroo sheds. 
», Vulpine phalanger, Australia; by Mr. Corney; marsupial house. 
