Quadrupeds. — Cetacea. 



6777 



Mr. Westwood stated that he had himself made nearly the same reservations as 

 Mr. Stone, on the habits of the perfect Sitaris, many years ago, in a village, in Oxford- 

 shire, when he had found it usually abundant, and had succeeded in rearing the larva3 

 from the eggs laid by the females. He had since been favoured, by Madame Audouin, 

 with permission to make copies of the extensive series of observations made on the 

 habits and transformations of the same species, by the late lamented Prof. Audouin, 

 which he promised to lay before the Society at a future opportunity. 



Part 3 of the current volume of the Society's ' Transactions ' was on the table. — 

 E. S. 



Note on the Paper on Bovine Animals. — In reading a very interesting paper on 

 the " Species of Bovine Animals '' in the ' Zoologist,' I found a statement (Zool. 6553) 

 to the effect that buffaloes are the only domestic cattle over extensive regions of the 

 South of China, and are used for the purpose of tilling the ground. I have no doubt 

 it would afford some information to your readers to state that in Amoy and its neigh- 

 bourhood the small yellow cow is chiefly used for ploughing the wet paddy fields. The 

 buffalo is mostly kept for its milk, which article the natives in the neighbouring coun- 

 try of Chang-chow consume largely, though the Amoyites will not touch it. It is the 

 only milk the Europeans drink here, and is much richer and more unwholesome than 

 cow's milk. Buffaloes are slaughtered as well as cows for the market, but the flesh of 

 the former somewhat resembles horse-flesh, and is far inferior to that of the latter, 

 which in winter often puts us in mind of good old English roast beef. The Chinese 

 here seem to have little partiality for beef, and it is therefore the cheapest meat pro- 

 curable. The yellow cow is rather a timid animal, and always turns tail when a 

 stranger approaches. Not so the buffalo : this brute faces you and snuffs at you, and 

 has often been known to chase a European for a considerable distance. The only 

 two-legged animals it seems to humour are the black magnalis (Acridotheres cristatel- 

 lus, Linn.) and the russet egrets (Bupluris russalor, Temm.) I have often seen seve- 

 ral of these perched on the backs of buffaloes who were wallowing in the water or 

 quietly grazing. Sometimes, in catching a fly off the sides of the buffalo, the egret 

 would give the brute a sharp " dig," but the buffalo would merely turn his head round, 

 and then continue grazing as before. — Robert Swinhoe ; British Consulate, Amoy, 

 August 1, 1859. 



Whales in the Indian Seas. — At the meeting of the Asiatic Society, held on the 7th 

 of September, the curator read the introductory portion of a paper "On the Great 

 Rorqual of the Indian Ocean, with Notices of other Species of Cetacea." He remarked 

 that the gigantic whales (Balanida) of the inter-tropical regions of the ocean had been 

 little studied ; that the existence of them was even ignored by Dr. J. E. Gray, of the 

 British Museum, in his elaborate Synopsis of the known species of Cetacea, published 

 in the Zoology of the celebrated antarctic voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror (1846) ; 

 but that not only were such whales, attaining enormous dimensions, familiarly known 

 to navigators, but there happened to be a satisfactory notice of them at the northern 

 extremity of the Arabian Sea more than two thousand years ago, in the narrative of 

 the famous voyage of Nearchus, who commanded Alexander's fleet that sailed from 



xvii. 3 o 



