1863.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON A MALFORMATION OF A FOWL. TJ 



in 1857, in his ' Handleidung tot de Beoefening der Dierkunde' 

 (vol. i. p. 379). 



Dr. J. E. Gray exhibited a specimen of the young of the domestic 

 Fowl in spirits, with a singular malformation of the beak and foot, 

 and read the following letter addressed to him by Mr. W. Horn con- 

 cerning it : — 



" 21 Belitho Villas, Bartisbury, 



February 13th, 1863. 



" Dear Sir, — With this I send you the body of the chicken I 

 spoke to you about, the beak and feet of which bear a close resem- 

 blance to those of a Parrot, and I beg your acceptance of it. 



" It may perhaps be as well if I state the circumstances which, it 

 has occurred to me, may account for this freak of nature. I had 

 one of the Parrot tribe, which, on account of the noise it made, was 

 frequently placed in the yard where I kept a breed of white bantam 

 fowls. If any of these came near the Parrot's cage to pick up the 

 food it scattered, it became much enraged and screamed violently. 

 Soon after this I sat two hens on eggs, and in each brood I had one 

 chicken of this strange form. My impression at the time was, and 

 now is, that one of the hens had been frightened by the Parrot, and 

 an effect thereby produced on some of her eggs. 



"When I first mentioned it to you, I thought it had hut three 

 toes ; on closer inspection I perceive there is a fourth toe ; but the 

 form of the foot still very closely resembles that of a Parrot. 



" I am, 



«' Dear Sir, 



" Yours very truly, 



«Wm. Horn." 

 " P.S. The Parrot was never let out of the cage, and was, I be- 

 lieve, a female." 



" J. E. Gray, Esq., 



British Museum.'* 



Mr. F. Buckland gave some account of the progress of his expe- 

 riments in hatching and rearing Salmon and Trout by artificial means 

 in the tanks of the Zoological Society and elsewhere, and made some 

 remarks on the monstrosities observed by him amongst the embryos 

 of these fishes. 



