68 Mr Bateson, On Egyptian Mummied Gats. [Mav. 10, 



jacent plasma was never clotted up to its surface even after 24 hours' 

 digestion at 40°. When however at the end of this time the fer- 

 ment and the plasma were mixed by shaking the tube, clotting 

 throughout the whole mass speedily occurred. From these experi- 

 ments the authors concluded that Fick's views are not tenable, 

 and that there is no reason for supposing that the mode of action 

 of these ferments differs essentially from that of other ferments. 

 They explained the results obtained by Fick and themselves in 

 the case of milk as due to the inevitable mixing of traces of the 

 rennin with the milk, and pointed out how slight an amount of 

 mixing would suffice to produce the observed result by calling 

 attention to the fact that rennin will clot 400,000 — 800,000 times 

 its own weight of casein. Their results obtained with dilute salt- 

 plasma were even more striking, since with this the clot never 

 extended, even after prolonged digestion, more than a few milli- 

 meters above the junction of the surfaces of the ferment solution 

 and plasma. 



(4) On some Skidls of Egyptian Mummied Cats. By W. Bate- 

 son, M.A., St. John's College. 



[Reprinted from the Cambridge University Reporter, March 18, 1890.] 



Six skulls and two restored heads of Egyptian mummy-cats 

 were shown in illustration of the early history of the domestication 

 of the cat. The specimens indicate that the cats embalmed by 

 the Egyptians were of at least two kinds, and that the larger 

 variety was of much greater size than that usually reached by 

 either the modern domestic cat or the wild cat of Europe. These 

 facts have been already pointed out by de Blainville and Nehring, 

 but on comparison with a series of modern skulls it is not possible 

 to support the attempt to refer these animals to any particular 

 species of cat. The presumption is rather that cats of many kinds 

 and sizes, possibly distinct, and probably including Felis serval 

 and F. caligata (? = F. maniadata and F. caffra), were all thus 

 embalmed ; but whether these animals were all domesticated or 

 whether some were merely collected from time to time there is 

 no evidence to show. 



Pupa-cases of the maggots which had lived in these heads 

 were also exhibited. 



