432 . THE ZOOLOGIST. 



15 ft. long, was captured in a drift-net off Exmouth, and was exhibited in 

 Exeter ; and I have heard of several large Sharks, probably Blue Sharks, 

 having been taken on the coast this summer and autumn. — W. S. M. 

 D' Urban. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



Ferret : origin of the Name. — When the Romans introduced the 

 Rabbit into Italy, they introduced the custom of hunting it with Ferrets; 

 and when they imported the same animal into Britain they imported the 

 same custom with it (Pliny, lib. x. cap. 21). The great reason for the 

 Roman introduction of the former animal into both was the pleasure which 

 they took in hunting it with the latter. The Britons adopted what the 

 Romans practised, and have transmitted to us, their successors, the Roman- 

 Spanish hunt and the Roman-Spanish name for the animal employed in it; 

 denominating the latter Viverra, in Welsh Ouivaer, and in Irish Firead or 

 Ferret. See Whitaker's Hist. Manchester (1771), Book I. chap. 10, p. 344. 



The Dodo. — In vol. iv. of Shaw's ' General Natural History ' there is 

 a coloured figure of the Dodo, a copy of the painting in the British Museum, 

 said to have been taken from life. If so, the artist failed in its proper 

 delineation, as will be readily seen on comparing the head with the skull of 

 a Dodo, found by Shaw, in the Ashmolean Museum, which had been seen 

 by Willughby and Ray, of which I send an outline sketch ; also a figure of 

 the Dodo pictured, seemingly a monstrosity, if we may judge from the bill, 

 faulty in shape and size, the lower mandible being convex ; whereas in the 

 bill itself it is slightly concave and angular, or Gull-like, towards the 

 extremity, and the bill more depressed than that of the original, which is 

 well-nigh straight for two-thirds of its length. Remarking on the head 

 discovered in the Ashmolean Museum, Shaw says that " it is undeniable 

 that the general appearance of the beak of an Albatross is not greatly dis- 

 similar to that of the Dodo." But they are readily distinguished, the 

 nostrils of the former being high up on the bill towards the forehead, those 

 of the latter situated low down on the mandible towards the extremity ; its 

 Pigeon-shaped legs and feet appear too slight to carry so bulky a body, and 

 very unlike the leg described by Grew in his ' Museum Regalis Societatis.' 

 — H. W. Hadfield (Ventnor, Isle of Wight). 



Wild Geese formerly breeding in the English Fens. — With reference 

 to the note under this heading (p. 383), I may state that I know, or more 

 correctly knew, many of the old gunners, and I have heard from them that 

 in Qui, Waterbeaeh, Swaffliam, and Wicken Feus, Wild Geese were very 

 plentiful about the beginning of the present century, and that they left off 

 breeding there about that date or rather before. This many of my 

 informants had heard from older relatives. — E. T. Booth (Brighton). 



Z-D. 



