EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 185 



"The process which went on in the Silurian sea during the formation 

 of the Wenlock limestone was this : the shells and skeletons of the larger 

 marine organisms which existed, collected on the floor of the sea in very 

 small fragments. Whether this condition was due to detrition, or to the fact 

 that the creatures had served as food for large Ganoid fishes," the author 

 has no knowledge. In Carhoniferous days microscopic life must have been 

 quite as abundant " as it was in the sea in which the chalk formation took 

 place and in parts of the ocean of to-day." Of the Jurassic period 

 Mr. Wethered refers the formation of the oolitic granules ("roestone") to 

 organic origin. 



The microscope has thus fresh fields to conquer ; not only the unseen 

 life of the present epoch, but the remains of the minute organisms of a 

 long past. 



The following note on the breeding of the Caracal or Desert Lynx 

 is taken from our contemporary 'The Field': — " About eighteen months 

 ago (August, 1896), I purchased here a pair of 'Red Cat' kittens, which 

 must then have been about four or five months old. By * Red Cat,' as we 

 call it out here, I mean the African Lynx, or Caracal. On December 10th 

 last the cat had one kitten, which unfortunately died on the second day after 

 its birth. No one out here seems to have heard of ' Red Cats' breeding in 

 captivity, and so it may be of interest to record it. I am told that they have 

 two kittens at a birth ; on this occasion only one was born, which may be 

 accounted for, perhaps, by its being the first litter. The mother is now 

 expecting for the second time, and I hope in a few weeks to report the 

 successful rearing of her second family.- ~J. W. Jones (Vryburg, Bechuana- 

 land, February 1st)." 



This note evidently refers to Fells caracal — " Rooi Kat " of the Dutch. 

 Nicolls and Eglington, in their ' Sportsman in South Africa,' well observe 

 that " when its size is taken into consideration, it is justly reputed to be, 

 without exception, the most savage and intractable of the Felida. Even 

 when obtained quite young and brought up by hand, it gradually develops 

 « character, so to speak, of pure ' cussedness,' that any attempts to tame 

 it ha,c invariably proved unsuccessful." 



In the Report of the Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, 

 Washington (Ann. Rept. Smith. Iustit. to July, 1894), published in 1896, 

 and just received, we read that a young Black Bear was "born on Feb. 5, 

 1894. There are but few opportunities for observing the growth of these 

 animals, as they are rarely born in captivity. The little creature was very 

 small at birth, not larger than a good- sized rat, weighing but nine ounces, 



