72 The American Naturalist [January, 



during the fall and winter, most of the time in the same block. It 

 has returned each fall and remained until spring, and is now with 

 us. It forages about the dwellings ; feeding on the vines of the bar- 

 berry, ampelopsis etc. ; picking the white clover on the lawns and 

 towards spring feeding on the buds of the apple trees. There are a 

 few houses around which it delights to forage, where its tracks in the 

 snow are to be seen at daylight and where it is often seen by day. It 

 moves about with the characteristic caution of the wild bird, but has 

 lost much of its timidity, as one can approach within 10 or 12 feet of 

 it without disturbing it. Our hopes that it would return some fall 

 with a mate have not been realized. The familiarity of the returning 

 bird with its old favorite haunts, establishes its identity. 



— M. C. Read. 



On some Peculiarities in the Structure of the Cervical 

 Vertebrae in the existing Monotremata.— For a long time I 

 have been acquainted with the peculiar fact that the cervical vertebrae 

 of Ornithorhynchus and Echidna are devoid of prse and postzyga- 

 pophyses. In these forms therefore the cervical vertebras are only con- 

 nected with each other by the centra of the vertebras and not by the 

 arches. I do not know whether this condition is mentioned by Gervais, 

 in his Osteographie des Monotremes, 1877, this work being not at 

 hand. But. since it is not noticed by Flower and Lydeker in their 

 work, An Introduction to the study of Mammals, Living and Extinct, 

 London 1891, nor in Flower's Osteology of Mammals, I should like 

 to call the attention to it. I have observed this peculiarity in all the 

 living forms of the Monotremata: Ornithorhynchus, Echidna, Pro- 

 echidna, and it is very interesting to see that the same condition is 

 found in two families so completely separated. I do not remember a 

 similar case among any of the higher vertebrates.— G. Baur, Clark 

 University, Worcester, Mass., Jan. 11, 1892. 



The Armadillo (Tatusia peba) in Texas.— It may be of interest 

 to some of your readers to know that the Armadillo, which has been 

 supposed to occur in Texas only in the extreme south-west, is grad- 

 ually ranging eastward. 



During the past Summer a specimen was taken within a few miles 

 of Austin and is now in our museum. Several have been seen on 

 Onion Creek just south of here and they are quite numerous on the 

 Navidad river in Lavaca County east of the ninety-seventh degree of 

 longitude.— E. T. Dumble, State Geologist. 



