NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 163 
he shot several spike horns, and one at least was a large buck of four 
years if not of five, and was so considered by several old hunters. In 
this specimen one of the horns was slightly forked at the end, but the 
other was a simple slightly curved spike. Mr. Bromley says that any old 
hunter of the Saranac region would laugh at the idea of all the spike 
horns being young bucks of two or three years, and he states that they 
can be recognized by their shorter legs, as well as by their spike horns. 
Mr. Bromley thinks that the spike horns have increased in numbers 
over the branched horns, and that in spite of the extensive hunting are 
about as abundant as when he first went into the woods. — F. W 
DeEr’s Horns. — It is a well known fact that the horns of deer are but 
very seldom found in the woods, even in districts where the deer are very 
plenty. Several ways of accounting for their disappearance have been 
suggested, but the cause that seems to be the best substantiated is that 
under the snow in early spring. In confirmation of this theory Mr. H. 
Bromley of Keeseville, N. Y., has informed me that he once found a deer's 
horn in the woods that had been partly gnawed, and had been nearly 
eaten through in two places by mice. — F. W. P. 
SINGULAR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE HORNBILLS DURING THE 
BREEDING SEASON. — No sooner has the hen commenced the labor of in- 
cubation, say several trustworthy observers on this subject, than the 
male walls up the hole in the hollow tree in which the hen is sitting on 
her eggs, until there is only room for the point of her bill to protrude, so 
that until her young birds are hatched she remains confined to her nest, 
and is in the meantime assiduously fed by her mate, who devotes himself 
species, but is also spoken of by Dr. ngstone in the case of hornbills 
met with during his African uidi and there appears to be no 
doubt of its authenticity. In Sumatra, in 1862, Mr. Wallace heard the 
same story from his-humters, and was taken to see a nest of the concave- 
casqued hornbill, in which, fter the male bird had been shot while in the 
act of feeding its mate, the female was discovered walled up. **With 
a young one, lbpareatly not — days old, add a most remarkable 
pie It was about the size of a half-grown duckling, but so flabby 
and semi-transparent as to resemble a bladder of jelly, furnished with 
head, legs, and rudimentary wings, but with not a sign of a feather, ex- 
cept a few lines of points indicating where they would come.” — Nature. 
———' dl 
GEOLOGY. 
THE MEGATHERIUM AND ITS ALLIES. — The law of adherence to type, 
or pattern, in the skeletons of the Megatherium, cri perde and Mylo- 
don, extinct animals of the sloth tribe, ~~ o be illustrated in a 
remarkable manner in the following particulars: 
