184 Supplement to the Zoology: 
In the 5th volume of the transactions of the Linnzan So- 
clety, p- 227, is a description of this creature, called the 
mus bursarius ; done from a drawing eommunicated by 
Major-General Thomas Davies, F. R. and L.S. The fig- 
ure is of the natural size ; and represents the turgid bags 
projecting from the sides of the neck. They are so enor- 
mous, that the animal must have been very much incommo- 
ded by them, both in travelling and in eating. 
Afterwards a dead specimen was sent to England by La- 
dy Prescott, from Canada, where he was killed by an Indian 
in 1798. A description of this preparation was made by 
George Shaw, M. D. and inserted with figures in his Genera! 
Zoology, part 1. vol. 2. p. 100. In those drawings, the 
sacs are delineated as distended like two blown bladders, 
giving the Canada Rat, as he is called, a very grotesque ap- 
pearance. 
Notwithstanding all this testimony, doubts were entertain- 
ed in France; concerning the real existence of such an ani- 
mal. 
To remove these doubts, of the articleGn my possession, 
a just drawing thereof, was forwarded to Paris, for the 
great zoologists there. A paper containing an account of 
his character and appearance, was published in the Medic- 
al Repository for January, 1821, p. 249—250. The 
pouches are very conspicuous in both. 
What could be plainer than all this? It would seem 
there was no room for a deception. Yet in this very case 
a material error exists, which it is the object of this com- 
munication to expose. 
I had supposed the sacs as they appeared in the dried spe- 
cimen, were natural; and that the openings into them were 
from the throat, somewhere between the cheeks and gullet. 
But when Governor Cass and Professor Douglas, from 
whom I received the article, were discoursing with me 
about it, a few days ago, the former gentleman observed 
that the pouches did not appear externally in the living an- 
‘imal; that they were concealed within the skin ; that the 
orifices were on the outside of the neck; andthey had been 
inverted, like pockets turned inside out, for the sake of pre- 
serving them from the knife when the skin was taken off, 
and of drying them more effectually in the stuffed prepara- 
tion. On learning the manner of disfiguring, transforming. 
