SUBORBITAL PITS OF THE INDIAN ANTELOPE. 179 
In the female of the Indian Antelope the gland is much 
smaller, appearing simply as a black marking, and the animal 
does not appear to have the power of opening it. I have 
not had the opportunity of examining it very closely, but have 
not seen any secretion from it. These animals have not bred; 
the keeper tells me that the male and female fight if put in 
the same pen. 
It was an old idea, noticed in White’s ‘ Selborne,’ that the sub- 
orbital pits communicated with the nose, and allowed the animal 
to breathe while drinking with the nose under water; but of 
course, as pointed out by Mr. Harting, in his edition of that 
book, the gland is only in the skin, and does not communicate 
with the nostril. The same author? suggests that the fallacy of 
Alemeon, that goats breathe through their ears, may have been 
due to his having seen the openings of the pits behind the ears in 
the Chamois. In Caton’s ‘ Deer of America,’ the glands found 
on the legs of Reindeer, Mule-deer, Wapiti, and other deer will 
be found described at length. These glands are found in the 
male and female, and at all ages. The only advantage to the 
animal suggested is in enabling it to find its companions by the 
scent. In the Wapiti, as may be seen by inspection of those 
now in the Zoological Gardens, the glands are placed in a tuft 
of hair on the hind legs, below the hock. 


NOTES AND QUERIES, 

MAMMALIA. 
Distribution of Plants by Frugivorous Bats.— Recently when 
walking in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Port-of-Spain, in company with 
the Superintendent, Mr. J. H. Hart, I noticed under a tree numbers of a 
large brown nut, about six or seven inches in circumference; these nuts 
evidently did not belong to the tree overhead, which bore a totally different 
fruit. Referring to Mr. Hart for an explanation, he informed me that it 
was due to the fruit-eating Bats, who resorted to favourite trees at night, 
bringing their food with them, and that suspended from a branch by their 
hind feet they fed at leisure. He further informed me that the nut I had 
noticed did not belong to any tree growing in the Botanic Gardens, nor to 
a tree that, so far as he was aware, grew in any close proximity to Port-of- 
Spain, and that the fruit must have been transported from some con- 
PR 
