310 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Britain. They remark " there is nothing unreasonable in the 

 suggestion of a Cat now found only in Africa having once ranged 

 over Europe, since the Spotted Hyaena, the Hippopotamus, and 

 the Panther were members of the Pleistocene fauna, as well as 

 being now associated with Felis coffer in Africa." If this sup- 

 position be correct it would seem, as Dr. Hamilton observes, 

 that the smaller species was enabled to survive throughout 

 Europe during all the geological changes, owing to its natural 

 food (in the shape of the leporine and other rodent forms) con- 

 tinuing to exist, for, according to Owen, there is no difference 

 between the fossil bones of the Pleistocene species of Lepus and 

 Arvicola and those of the present time ; while the larger species, 

 from some cause as yet unexplained, became extinct. It would 

 have been more convenient, we think, if at this point (p. 16) 

 Dr. Hamilton had introduced the comparison of skulls and other 

 bones which he has instituted, instead of deferring (to p. 47) his 

 consideration of these points, the most valuable in his memoir, 

 for the sake of interposing (pp. 16-30) his collected records of 

 Felis catus in Britain and on the Continent. 



This section is interesting enough, although readers of * The 

 Zoologist ' who happen to bear in mind the many records of 

 British Wild Cats which have been published during the last 

 fifty years in this journal will notice many gaps which might have 

 been filled with a little more research, and will regret the 

 omission of references to many of the records quoted. 



Some of the extracts furnished by Dr. Hamilton must have 

 been quoted by him second-hand, for they are not only inaccurate, 

 but in some cases valueless. Take, for example, the following 

 sentence on page 16: — "In the Booke of St. Albans, printed by 

 Wynkyn de Wode [Worde] in 1496 [why not quote the first 

 edition, 1486, as being earlier?], the Wild Cat is mentioned 

 among the ' Bestys of chase sweete and stynking.' " Now, had 

 Dr. Hamilton referred to the work he purports to quote, he 

 would have discovered that amongst the " Bestys of the chace of 

 the swete feute & stynkynge " (to quote correctly), the Wild Cat 

 is not mentioned, and the quotation, therefore, is valueless. 



In the next sentence Dr. Hamilton observes : — " Three years 

 previously [how did he fix the date of an undated folio?] he, i.e. 

 Wynkyn de Worde, printed a translation, by Thomas Buller, of 

 * Bartholomseus de Proprietatibus Rerum,' in which the Wild 



