62 



RETROSPECTIVE REMARKS. 



having been taken from a coloured drawing and not from the bird itself, 

 it is so imperfect in its details as to be very little assistant to the ascer- 

 taining of its species ; yet some of the more permanent characters 

 mentioned therein accord pretty well with those of the Carolina 

 cuckoo, (Coccgzus Carolinensis,) two specimens of which are stated 

 in the Philosophical Magazine (vol. iii. page 62,) to have been lately 

 met with in Ireland, and a single individual to have been exhibited at 

 a meeting of the Zoological Society on February the 26th, 1833, shot 

 in Wales during the preceding autumn, on the preserves of Lord Cawdor, 

 by whom it was transmitted to London for scientific examination. 



Your correspondent " Solitarius " (in whom I think I can recognise 

 a very intimate acquaintance of mine,) states in his " Miscellanies," 

 published in your November number, that he had a specimen of (Blaps 

 obtusd) that lived for three weeks without food. A similar, but more 

 remarkable instance of abstinence from food with respect to another 

 species, {Blaps mortisaga,) is mentioned by Mr. Baker, the celebrated 

 microscopic observer, who says that he kept one without a morsel of 

 nourishment for the space of three years. The statement which ee Soli- 

 tarius" has introduced into the above named contribution, respecting 

 the reanimation of bees after they had been " well-boiled," may appear 

 to some persons quite incredible, but is not altogether so improbable, 

 for Mr. Spence whose zeal in entomology is a sufficient guarantee for 

 his veracity, tells us at page 237, v °l- n - of his valuable " Introduc- 

 tion," that he once took from the hot dung of his cucumber-bed a small 

 beetle, (Lyctus Juglandis, F,) which he immersed in boiling water 

 until he conceived it to be dead j but upon taking it out and laying it 

 to dry it soon showed symptoms of life and regained sufficient strength 

 to walk. Upon this curious and surprising exhibition of resistance to 

 a degree of heat that would have proved fatal to other animals, Mr. 

 Spence remarks, that the native station of that species " being of so 

 high a temperature, Providence has fitted it for it, by giving it extraor- 

 dinary powers of sustaining heat." 



Mr. Clarke's instance (p. 511) of cats catching fish is not the only 

 one on record, several having been furnished by various writers. The 

 author of the " Menageries" at page 208, vol. i., gives an instance 

 which he witnessed of a cat's seizing an eel out of a pail of water, and 

 quotes an account of a similar nature, from Dr. Darwin, respecting a 

 cat being in the constant habit of catching trouts by darting upon them 

 in the water. Many other accounts, all proving that this is a common 

 and a natural habit of the domestic cat as well as of the jaguar (Felis 



