5502 Quadrupeds — Birds. 



produced Buffon and Voltaire, — to the first of whom we owe the 

 theory of primitive moulds, and to the latter an expression he applied 

 to the physical world, far in advance of his age, " the laws of defor- 

 mation are as constant as the laws of formation." 



R. Knox. 



Meissen House, Upper Clapton, 

 January, 1857. 



Sagacity of the Rat. — Strange stories are often told about the sagacity of the common 

 rat, and most people have heard of the method by which that animal is said to purloin 

 eggs. The following is a true account of the way they defeat an ingenious contrivance 

 of farmers: — A labourer on a farm at Tenterden, observing holes in the thatch of a 

 corn stack, evidently made by rats or mice, was puzzled how to account for the intru- 

 sion : the stack being raised more than two feet from the ground, the plunderers must 

 have entered by the roof. The mystery was soon solved : the man came the next 

 morning, and saw a rat carefully balancing itself at the extremity of a branch of an 

 elder tree about three feet from the stack, and crouching down ready to spring on to 

 the thatch. I am told by those conversant in such matters that the raised stand does 

 not protect a stack from mice, which are often carried in the sheaves from the barn, 

 and need not leave their good quarters until the food is consumed. With rats, how- 

 ever, the case is different ; they are obliged to go away in search of water ; consequently, 

 when the stack is raised from the ground, they cannot return. Our sagacious friends 

 mentioned above were more fortunate; they could eat a passage through their abode, 

 drop out at the bottom, quench their thirst, ascend the tree, and leap home again. — 

 S. C. Tress Beale ; Ivy Court, Tenterden, January 26, 1857. 



Birds of the Crimea. By Thomas Blakiston, Esq., Lieut., R.A. 

 (Contiuued from page 5421). 



Sylviada. 



In commencing at the beginning of this numerous family, of which 

 I can name fifteen species as visiting the Crimea, and five of which are 

 included in the Fauna of Britain, the first which 1 come to is the 

 hedgesparrow (Accentor modutaris), of which Dr. William Carte ob- 

 tained a specimen in the month of February, and I killed another early 

 in March. 



I have no doubt that the Crimea would be a most interesting field 

 for the naturalist, and, if well worked up, would throw much light on 

 the range of British birds. The character of the country and its situa- 

 tion are peculiar : it is, in some measure, cut off from the mainland 

 to the south and west; and although there is but two and a half 

 degrees of sea separating it from Asia Minor, yet this may limit the 



