Quadrupeds. 2871 



soused into the water. Here, then, was a problem, and we waited with some cu- 

 riosity for its solution : it was soon solved. A monkey was now seen attaching his 

 tail to the lowest on the bridge, another girdled hiin in a similar manner, and 

 another, and so on, until a dozen more were added to the string. These last were all 

 powerful fellows ; and running up to a high limb, they lifted the bridge into a posi- 

 tion almost horizontal. Then a scream from the last monkey of the new formation 

 warned the tail end that all was ready ; and the next moment the whole chain was 

 swung over, and landed safely on the opposite bank. The lowermost links now 

 dropped off like a melting candle, whilst the higher ones leaped to the branches, and 

 came down by the trunk : the whole troop then scampered off into the chapparal and 

 disappeared ! — Capt. Reid's Adventures in Southern Mexico. 



A Calf ejecting Snakes. — The following most peculiar circumstance appeared in 

 a Kentish paper this week, and there is not much doubt I conceive of its being a 

 veritable occurrence, the name of the owner and place being given : it will at least 

 surprise, if not amuse the readers of the ' Zoologist.' " A cow, belonging to W. Cow- 

 burn, Esq., of Edenbridge, had a calf about two months ago, which has been very 

 sickly for five weeks. Medicine was given, and soon after it brought away a snake ; 

 one or two others followed every succeeding day, and in the whole, eleven snakes were 

 counted, all dead. Some of them are entire, and others in pieces. The calf is a 

 little better, and is now under the care of Mr. Cowburn's bailiff. The snakes are 

 preserved." Such is the account given of this most extraordinary ejectment of crea- 

 tures as extraneous to the quadruped in the usual course of nature, as they are dissi- 

 milar in form. The species is not mentioned, but most likely it was the common 

 snake {Coluber natrix) and one might feasibly premise that a string of eggs must 

 have been taken in by the calf when feeding, as it was sufficiently advanced in growth 

 to obtain an independent livelihood by munching the grass, and in the course of time, 

 through the warm temperature which surrounded them, they became hatched, 

 causing the animal which had taken so much care of them, an uneasiness only 

 eased by physic, which seemingly proved fatal to the reptiles, testifying the truth of 

 the aphorism " What is one creature's food is another's poison." — W. H. Cordeaux ; 

 Canterbury, July 4, 1850. 



Note on the common Squirrel. — The destructive properties of this truly elegant and 

 active little inhabitant of our woods, are not generally known : with the exception 

 of the remarks by the Rev. W. T. Bree, (Zool. 2842) we have not met with any in 

 the numerous works which we have consulted on natural history. It certainly is ad- 

 mitted that it feeds chiefly upon the fruits of the pine, fir and larch ; on acorns, beech- 

 mast, chestnuts, walnuts, filberts, apples, and other cultivated fruits, as also the bark 

 of young trees. During the year 1847, there was an abundance of acorns, mast, and 

 nuts in the woods and plantations here, but the year 1848 was a total failure of these, 

 their natural food ; in the absence of which, they commenced a wholesale destruction 

 of our young oaks, beech, larch, fir, pine and poplar trees, by stripping the bark off 

 the trunks of the trees as effectually as if it had been done by the hands of man. 

 Nor was this done in small patches here and there, as we frequently see it even where 

 they have an abundance of other food, but actually in patches of from one to ten feet 

 in length, and quite round the tree, and gnawed to such a depth, even in the solid 

 wood, that the slightest wind broke off the tops, giving the trees an appearance as if 

 they had been headed back by some instrument. Several of these tops we measured 

 and found them from four to ten feet in length. It was not small trees alone that 



