476 MR. p. L. SCLATER ON DASYPELTIS SCABRA. [JuDC 14, 



" I had hoped to have shown to-night the animals I sent off alive 

 from Egypt, but they all died on the way home, the last off the Isle 

 ofWight. The person who was in charge of them informs me that 

 they would probably all have reached this country alive had not the 

 sandy earth that had been sent with them been impregnated with salt, 

 which began to deliquesce as soon as the ship got into the moist 

 atmosphere of the Mediterranean." 



Prof. Romanes gave an account of some results recently obtained 

 from the cross-breeding of Rats and Rabbits, and showed that 

 according to these experiments it did not follow that a blending of 

 the characters of the parents was always the result of crossing two 

 different varieties. 



Prof. Howes exhibited and made remarks on some photographs 

 received from Prof. Parker, of Otago, New Zealand, illustrative of 

 Sea-Lions, Penguins, and Albatrosses in their native haunts. 



Dr. Dawson made some remarks on the Fur-Seal of Alaska, and 

 exhibited a series of photographs illustrating the attitudes and 

 mode of life of these animals. 



Mr. Sclater called attention to the habits of a South-African 

 Snake (Basypeltis scabra), as exhibited by an example of this snake 

 presented to the Society's Menagerie by Messrs. Herbert M. and 

 Claude Beddington, of Port Elizabeth, and received September 15, 

 1891, which was placed on the table. 



As was well known, this snake fed exclusively on eggs ; and since 

 it had been in the Society's Gardens it had occasionally eaten 

 pigeons' eggs. These were, no doubt, pierced by the gular teeth 

 which this peculiar snake possesses, and their contents emptied 

 into the stomach. 



A short time after the egg had been swallowed, the shell of the 

 egg was rejected from the mouth in the form of a pellet. 



Specimens of these pellets were exhibited'. 



^ Dr. Andrew Smith writes as follows : — 



" The paucity and smallness of the teeth in the mouth are favourable to the 

 passage of the egg, and permit it to progress without injury, whereas were 

 they otherwise, many eggs, which have very thin shells, would be broken before 

 they entered the gullet, and the animal in consequence would be deprived of 

 its natural food when within its reach. Having observed that living specimens 

 which I kept in confinement always retained the egg stationary about two 

 inches behind the head, and while in that position used great efforts to crush it, 

 I killed one, and found the gular teeth at about the place where the egg ceases 

 to descend. Those teeth, I am satisfied from many observations, assist in 

 fixing the egg, and also in breaking the shell when the former reaches them, and 

 is subjected to compression by the muscular action of the parts surrounding it. 

 The instant the egg is broken by the exertions of the animal, the shell is 

 ejected from the mouth, and the fluid contents are conveyed onwards to the 

 stomach." (' Illustrations of Zoology of S. Africa,' text to plate 73.) 



