472 Qtieries and Ansimet's, 



shade as the mole, inclines me to think that it is hardly possible that it can 

 be that animal, or that the common shrew can undergo so great a change 

 both in colour and size. I have the three specimens stuffed. Does the 

 common shrew grow larger or darker-coloured from age, or any other 

 cause? Perhaps some of your numerous and intelligent. correspondents 

 can throw some light on this subject. — W. W. Liverpooly May 31. 

 ,1830. 



A Land Tortoise mutilated hy Rats. — Sir, Rather a singular occurrence 

 took place a short time ago respecting a land tortoise. 1 have examined all 

 the works on natural history that I can meet with in this neighbourhood, 

 but can find no satisfactory account of it. Perhaps you would have the 

 goodness to allow an enquiry to be made through the medium of your 

 widely circulated Magazine. 



In October last a land tortoise was placed in a convenient corner to 

 spend his torpid winter. He was soon attacked by some rats, which eat 

 away his eyes, tongue, and all the under part of his throat, together with 

 the windpipe. In that same mutilated state it is supposed that he remained 

 about three weeks before it was discovered. On examination I could not 

 discern that the least decomposition had taken place, rteither could I dis- 

 cover any symptoms of animation. I then proceeded to open the shell, 

 with the view of preserving it for a museum. I found in the lower part of 

 the shell about two table-spoonfuls of gravel, the grains of which varied from 

 _i_ to ^ in. in diameter ; there was also a quantity of green matter, which 

 appeared like masticated grass, mixed with a kind of viscid slime, but all 

 was perfectly sweet. After extracting the inside, and taking the bones and 

 flesh from the legs and neck, I applied a large quantity of corrosive sublimate, 

 dissolved in spirits of wine, which I had found to be an effective antiseptic 

 for all animal substances I had before applied it to ; but in this case it 

 failed, as a slight putrefaction has taken place. What I want to learn 

 are, if there is any better antiseptic than the one I have tried ? or if 

 there is any peculiar method to preserve a tortoise ? and if the sleepy 

 tribe are susceptible of sensation whilst in their torpid state ? I am, &c. — 

 William Jones. Post-Office, Ludlow, March 28. 1830. 



Oviparous Quadrupeds (^Amphibia), p. 364. — Ought the newly discovered 

 marine animals with paddles to be called quadrupeds ? Ought animals formed 

 for only moving in the ocean to be called Amphibia? — L. July 2. 1830. 



A7i Egg within an Egg. — I have lately seen a preternaturally large but 

 perfect goose's egg, containing a smaller one within it, the inner one pos- 

 sessing its proper calcareous shell. If, as I have learned from books, the 

 shell is not added to the ovum until its arrival in the uterus of the bird, 

 how could this inner egg acquire its shell? Will some of your readers 

 have the goodness to inform me ? — Anser. June, 1830. 



The Songs of Birds innate or acquired. — Sir, Looking over your 

 Magazine the other day, my attention was arrested by a letter from a Nor- 

 folk correspondent on the subject of the notes of birds. The question 

 was, " whether they are hmate or acquired^ Now, really, it appears to 

 me that the habits of the cuckoo render the former conclusive. It is well 

 known that that bird never gives itself the trouble to build a nest, but deposits 

 its egg in that of some other bird ; often, I believe, the hedge-sparrow : con- 

 sequently, the note of the sparrow would be more familiar to it than that of 

 its real parent ; yet I imagine the note of the cuckoo, whatever may be the 

 species of its foster parent, is always that of its kind. A few years ago I 

 saw, in a town in Devonshire, a cuckoo in a cage, which had been found half- 

 fledged in a field the preceding spring, and transplanted to a house in a 

 narrow street in the middle of the town, a situation where he most pro- 

 bably never saw or heard one of his own species, yet at the sight of his 

 protectress, or when hungry, he would cry cuckoo ! cuckoo ! in the natural 

 tone J and, what I thought a remarkable circumstance, he would not feed 



