1865.] Scientific Intelligence. 283 



what it was, if you were to see it stepping about at a distance. Em- 

 phatically a snake-devouver. Two young Wapitis came to light this 

 week, the daughters of the fine Calif ornian buck ! A lot oiAmmoperdix 

 Heyi ; and different species of Pterocles. Pt. alchata (I may have told 

 you) has bred, and I saw the newly hatched chick, prcecox of course, 

 but inactive, from the shortness of its legs. The Felis macroceles and 

 two Ursus Malay anus which I brought doing well. A pair of common 

 house Mamas at last ; and I wish I could see a pair of common Indian 

 crows, and the two common Indian vultures, Gyps indicus and G. 

 bengalensis. Although the temperature has been extraordinarily high 

 all this September, and people are panting and languishing as if they 

 were in Sierra Leone, I observe with interest and considerable surprise 

 that the Arctic Foxes are rapidly re-assuming their white winter coat ! 

 I hear of some extraordinary discoveries up one of the great tributaries 

 of the Amazons, where the few scattered human inhabitants had never 

 before been visited, and were unacquainted with the use of metal, 

 using stone implements ; and the animals quite tame and unscared 

 by man — herds of Tapirs, which would allow their coats to be rubbed 

 by a stick and enjoyed the titillation. I just lost a fine thing the 

 other day at Stephens's auction, a splendid skull oiBubalus brachyceros 

 had been knocked down for eight shillings ; and the purchaser would 

 not part with it. You would otherwise have had it. 



P. S. — I have been thinking that you would do well to re-publish 

 my commentary on Jerdon's Birds of India, if you could get Jerdon 

 himself to annotate it, and thus afford him a convenient opportunity, 

 of making known all that he may have to add,, in order to complete 

 our information on the subject up to the date of publication in the 

 J. A. S. I much wish to know how his book has sold, and also what 

 progress he is making with the other classes of vertebrata. N. B. 

 Felis rubiginosa of the Coromandel Coast extends to Ceylon (Cingha- 

 lese specimen in Belfast Museum) ; and my Cinghalese Sciurus Lay- 

 arcli is in the Worcester Museum from Malabar, sent (with Presbytia 

 Johnii, verus, &c.) .by R. Cole of Madras. Also, in the Worcester 

 Museum, a fine adult female of the rare Falco Babylonicus, alleged to 

 be from Java, which I do not believe. I have seen a kitten of my 

 Felis Jerdoni from Malabar, and I have little doiibt that this jungle- 

 cat there takes the place of F. rubiyinosa of the Coromandel side of 

 37 



