ZOOLOGY. 633 
stand, by this Grimalkin Turk, has gone on for some four years, 
and to-day, July 29th, I examined one of his daughters, some 
three months old, which has siz toes on each of the hind-feet, and 
seven toes on each of the fore-feet. The fore-feet are bifurcated ; 
that is, they have, as it were, each two paws to one foot, the 
outer paw of each foot being much the larger, and having four 
toes; and the inner, or smaller paw, on each foot, having three 
toes. This kitten was one of a litter of four, all malformed pre- 
cisely alike. On some points I could not get the exact informa- 
tion desired. But I should think that the vitality of these cats 
is becoming less and less, as they do not become common. To me 
it seems astounding when I attempt to conceive of the physical 
equation which enters into this erratic conception — the minute- 
ness of the abnormal material which, plus the normal substance 
as imparted by the spermatozoén, gives the initial impulse to a 
result so eccentric. If, as Goethe declared, ‘‘ It is in her mon- 
Strosities that Nature reveals to us her secrets,” one would like to 
know something of the mode and motive of such a distribution of 
the life force. During our inspection of Miss Tabbie it was all 
very well so long as we stroked her back with one hand. She 
purred as expressive of true feline luxuriousness ; and, what is not 
common, she even licked the other hand as indicating affection. 
But when we meddled with her extremities, she evidently regarded 
it as taking personal liberties with unpleasant peculiarities; and 
instantly rewarded our duplicity by investing in our hand the seven 
talons concealed in that duplex napkin.—Samvuet Locxwoop. 
Tae “ Wittow Wanns” rrom Burrarp’s Intet.— I have been 
able definitely to place the above, referred to by my friend “W. H. 
+: on page 488 of this volume of the Naturatist, by the receip 
in this city of several specimens in good preservation. The 
“wands” or “switches” prove to be what the majority of scien- 
tific gentlemen who had seen specimens, supposed, viz., the cen- 
tral stalks or axes of Alcyonoid polypes, but do not belong to the 
Senus Umbellularia as suggested by me, but to a new species of 
vonaria, which I have described in the “ Mining and Scientific 
Press” (August 9th) of this city, under the name of Pavonaria 
Blakei. It is a beautiful form resembling in a general way the 
British species P. quadrangularis from Oban. The most perfect 
Specimen, but not the largest, displayed some 245 ,-like rows, 
